> Android is "free" to the consumer, but the payment is that if you want all of the Google apps (which are no longer part of the open source stuff) and the consumer uses the Google apps (likely), all of the search revenue goes to Google.

The payment is your private information.

That too, although unpersonalized search ads are worth a lot more money than your private information.

Good point, but for the record none of the Google apps were ever open source - they were part of the compatibility suite from the start.

They did start replacing a couple of the open source apps with Google versions, though (like the browser.)

I was thinking of the browser in particular -- the open source one was abandoned a while ago, and the proprietary one has google hard-wired as the only search engine.

The numerous China Android based OS's, that are void of Google services, would disagree.

Excuse me, disagree how? They don't use the special google apps, and search revenue doesn't go to google. That's consistent with what I said. Sorry that it wasn't clear.