No we don't ... if you take a theoretically open Android system but buy it from Verizon, you'll find low-quality bloatware and unresolvable data issues just like those described in the article.
And that, kids, is why you want to look for a rootable, reflashable phone.
Don't look at me like that. My sister's phone is rooted. Same for the guy at Radio Shack who sold me my last phone. Neither of them know shit about how to do it, but they got someone else to. Rooted and re-ROM'd smartphones are a pretty hot commodity these days.
To be clear, you need to find a guy who will undo what the phone company did to it. This is Google/Android's fault the same way that it is Microsoft/Window's fault that the Acer you bought from Best Buy is nigh-unusable due to everything it's trying to run when you first boot up, and "some guy" needs to come in and clock some serious time in the Uninstall dialog before it'll be really usable. (If indeed everything will uninstall correctly.) It's actually the fault of the last person to own the box.
> This is Google/Android's fault the same way that it is Microsoft/Window's fault that the Acer you bought from Best Buy is nigh-unusable due to everything it's trying to run when you first boot up...
That isn't Microsoft's fault because they've already been slapped with an anti-trust lawsuit over exercising that kind of control over Windows. They theoretically have the power to enforce such a restriction but choose not to in order to cover their ass. Considering the various payouts they've made to governments for telling OEMs what to do, it's hard to blame them.
However it is Google's fault because they have no such restriction with Android. As the scuttled Acer Alibaba launch demonstrated, Google has no qualms about exercising its power in a potentially destructive way to bully their partners into toeing the line.
They get final approval of what ships on the phone, the design, and the changes to Android. If they don't like what they see, they can revoke access to the core Google apps like Gmail and Market, making it essentially an AOSP device. The Skyhook investigation taught us all that.
So in other words, Google has the power. They use the power frequently. They also are not in legal hot water over exercising the power. However, they won't exercise the power to benefit you because they value their close relationship with carriers way more than they value you as a customer. Mainly because you're not really a customer, as an Android user you're the product being sold to advertisers.
There is no reason to give Google a pass on this one. They are the only ones with the power to stop carrier and manufacture bloatware from ruining the phone, and they deliberately choose to ignore it because maintaining relationships with hardware partners and carriers is more important to them than your experience with the phone. That's the bottom line.
