It is the customer’s problem, so it is jointly a problem for Android and the OEM. Google may try to abrogate responsibility here as usual, but it doesn’t make it any less their problem.

Dunno, the answer is generally if you don't want crapware, buy a pixel.

Motorola also ships ~no crapware.

But the pixels are (in my opinion) just such complete misses as phones. I’m not sure I’d want to use the latest Pixel if I got it for free, yet they charge an absurdly high price for it. I used to love my Nexus 4, and I liked my Nexus 5. It was absolutely amazing to have a real Google phone that I didn’t have to fight with in order to own for real at the lowest levels. But all the recent pixel phones have way too many trade-offs for me to use any of them as my daily driver. There are android phones out there which I like and would be happy to use as my daily driver, except on the software side they are way too locked down and I can’t root/flash them. I really wish phones worked the way computers do, I could just buy/build any hardware I want and run a fresh copy of Linux or windows on it under my complete control.

Why a complete mess? Sure Google is a popular target, much like apple, where a huge number of people chime in to complain. I've had every nexus and every pixel, all the way back to the HTC G1 on the first day it was for sale.

Sure choice of OS would be nice, but there's a huge number of man hours that go into making a nice touch UI. Something that experts don't tend to obsess over, unless paid.

The pixel's don't have a locked bootloader, and you could try one of the community builds, which I've done. But there's much less incentive lately. I used to root to tether, don't need to anymore.

Why is that possible on android but not iOS phones? Serious question - I assume it’s because of the way android is built but I don’t know How that works. Why is there preinstalled installed software on Android phones at all?

Edit: I’m not sure why this question is getting downvoted.

When a device manufacturer makes a phone that uses android they can do a lot of stuff with Android without any issues (beside UX), other than messing with APIs and legal things. iOS is exclusively made by Apple and nobody can release their own iOS, so they always have prevented others (even the carriers) from putting their own apps on the phone before the user gets the device.

Could google change the terms and say that device manufacturers can not preinstall custom specific types of apps or services?

Why would you buy an LG versus a Samsung? Too many android manufacturers to compete on just hardware alone. Even less so than Windows laptops and PCs. Customizing Android is the differentiator.

I personally hate it, but I understand why they do it. I just wish we could get a class leading vanilla Android phone. Pixel isn’t it.

They've made multiple attempts to do this.

Manufactures really hate the lack of flexibility and there is a small amount of justification: new hardware often does need new controls.

And of course many people like the flexibility of Android.

Because the comparable phone to iOS phones aren't "Android phones" but "Pixel phones". Phones where the OS vendor also builds the hardware and controls everything.

It's just a different model. Single corporation stack gives you more consistency and less bloatware and OEM based stack gives you more market choice and greater accessibility.

It is Android's problem because Apple has proven it's possible to tell vendors and OEMs that they can't do that shit.

It's not an Android problem, as you only have the issue if you buy from a shitty oem.

Get a device with stock Android ROM and there is no issue