And yet the Pixel is itself a custom skin of Android.

Google Assistant? Not available on my Nexus 5X, which I received less than a year ago. Search button behaves differently, Allo behaves differently, "night mode" removed Nexus 5X build and added to Pixel build.

I'm upset because I thought switching to a Google-designed Android phone would rescue me from fragmentation and give me access to the best, cleanest Android experience.

Then they released the Pixel and removed a feature from my phone and fragmented their own operating system's features to differentiate a new device.

That's not a custom skin... it's an app. And while I can understand complaining they didn't enable it on the 5x, if you REALLY want it, it's extremely easy to enable on a 5x.

I've used it exactly 1 time, and if my choices were a 5x or a Pixel and that was the only feature I cared about, I wouldn't spend the money in a million years to enable it.

Allo is useless to me, so I guess I don't really have any comments there. No desktop app? No multi-device? I'll stick with hangouts.

None of the things you mentioned would be worth upgrading for. And I REALLY don't think you're missing anything. The camera and the build quality are what make the pixel awesome. Assistant, night mode, and allo functioning slightly differently don't even enter into the equation on the price hike being justified.

Well it is a custom skin built into the Google App. I have the Nexus 6p and enabled it by making a change so my device identifies as a Pixel to Google. There was no additional software installed and that was all I did to enable it, make a small text change from "Nexus 6p" to "Pixel XL".

Okay, sure not off direct licensing of the OS. But total revenues are $31 billion. That's a significant number on their balance sheet.

http://www.androidauthority.com/how-does-google-make-money-f...

The Pixel doesn't have an sdcard slot, which is a deal breaker for me. (I don't rent my music, so I have a 200GB micosd card with my collection on it). Even their 128GB model simply won't cut it.

You're now making a completely different argument. You started out claiming they intentionally break android to force you to upgrade every 2 years. Now you're pointing out they make a ton of money off android from revenues and search... which is exactly what I said. And not at all what you said.

I'm not sure what to tell you on the sdcard slot or how it applies to the discussion. I simply said the Pixel is a clear example of the rest of the android ecosystem not living up to Google's expectations of a premium phone. There will NEVER be a phone that is all things to all people, if an sdcard is a dealbreaker for you, don't buy one. I think it's ridiculous to claim you need 200GB of songs on your phone, but that's your choice. Of course, google will let you upload 50,000 songs for free over google music, so even that excuse doesn't hold water, but I'm sure you'll find another reason to complain.

> Of course, google will let you upload 50,000 songs for free over google music, so even that excuse doesn't hold water, but I'm sure you'll find another reason to complain.

I mean, not OP here, but my music library is ~140 GB, and I don't think it's unreasonable to want to have that available without internet access. I run with a 64gb iPhone, so I'm definitely not the guy arguing for massive SD cards on everything, but I don't think you can say it's totally ridiculous to have a use case for that much storage.

They know what they are doing. The whole point is to get you to use their cloud services. But now, if you are a Project Fi user, they are charging for data access to your own content you upload to Play Music.

So now I am back to managing music files on my device and changing them out and feeling like I jumped 10 years back to the past.

Right, which is why in every google app they give you the option to cache songs offline, and set your phone to only play streaming music while on wifi. They're TOTALLY trying to get you to spend more on data - which they make basically nothing off of. That's as ridiculous as saying they intentionally break android to have you buy a new phone to make the whopping .75 per handset.