Perhaps. But just as Google offers gmail for free I think it would have been possible to design a business model that allowed the phone to be sold at a discoun

Perhaps. But just as Google offers gmail for free I think it would have been possible to design a business model that allowed the phone to be sold at a discount without a contract. I think Google's pricing was targeted at investors (as in look, we can get top dollar for a phone just like Apple) rather than at consumers who would happily give Google lots of behavioral data for ads in exchange for a discounted phone.