Unless Google resumes direct sales or puts licensing limitations on the carriers to prevent them from locking down Android phones, “open” will be just another empty marketing slogan. And I suspect that’s what it will be. Google doesn’t really care about the user experience, they just want to keep making money on their proprietary, non-open advertising in the mobile space the way they have on the web, and the more Android phones that are out there, the more phones that will be getting Google Ads. Hell, Google even discussed the possibility of unblockable ads at Google IO!

The above paragraph doesn’t see the whole picture. Another policy overriding any google practice is “Dont be evil.” and there are tons of googlers who work there for just that reason. The minute google doesn’t care about the user experience, android would die.

(via Instapaper)