The market is not just OEMs and carriers; those are the vendors. The market also contains buyers (us). It's true that buyers need education regarding better opt

The market is not just OEMs and carriers; those are the vendors. The market also contains buyers (us). It's true that buyers need education regarding better options (like unlocked phones). Google have stepped back their promotion of unlocked Nexuses since the Nexus One, where they promoted unlocked as the preferred route. (Whether they "failed" is a question for them, and what the aim of that experiment was. Perhaps the market wasn't ready for such assertive education.) But at least when I bought my Nexus S, they were very much still promoting the unlocked route on equal footing with the carrier-tied route. They're still trying to educate the market that unlocked phones even exist. Update: missed this point. Also, what have unlocked and/or unsubsidized phones got to do with bloatware? They're similarly loaded with the bloatware too. Err, no they're not. I'm not talking about buying a phone from T-Mobile that you could use on another carrier if you wanted. I'm talking about buying a phone as a pure device, with no preexisting relationship to any carrier; and then buying a cellular service from a carrier independent of what phone I own. I didn't buy my laptop from Comcast, and indeed they don't even know what devices I use to consume their internet connection. Why should a smartphone be any different?