I did read the article, I know it for a long time. But I do not believe it applies in this case. Google is not selling hardware, it is not selling software, it is not even selling services. Google sells advertising, and mobile phones serve a dual role: they are (1) a platform for advertising, and (2) a means to improve their advertising products by data collection.

The biggest risk for Google is that someone else controls the mobile platform, and chooses not to give them space on this platform, or chooses not to allow them to collect the data that they need to improve their advertising.

Both are the same reasons why Google chose to build Chrome. Browsers were already a commodity, Microsoft and Netscape had seen to that long before Chrome started. So Google's strategy with Chrome can't have been commoditizing their complements. Rather, their strategy is about control of their platform, and it proved very successful. And now they are applying the same strategy with Android and the Google Play services.

And yes, my issue is not with the core open source Android code, my issue is with the final OS on my phone, which includes the Linux kernel, the Android OS, and a lot of Google tracking that I can't scrutinize or disable.

However, if Google were to start losing control of Androideither through laws or through competition (say the Amazon Android phone had taken off and squeezed Google Play out of the market) I can guarantee you that Google investment in Android would slow to a crawl. Google doesn't need a commodity OS on mobile. Google needs to control as much as possible of the mobile phone platform.