I think the argument goes that usually "walled garden" and "give a damn about the user" are inseparable. If that's true then Google did a disservice to users and it's showing as carriers exert more weight.
Now I'm not totally convinced that they are inseperable, moreover I'd say that even had Google done the "walled garden" method they'd still not have the clout and balls to fight the carriers like Apple did/does (who else could?). That all said, though, in the larger dialogue comparing the smartphone philosophies of Google and Apple where things like open and closed are used mostly as inaccurate rhetoric tools the empirical evidence that carriers add a bunch of often undesirable drift to most phones they carry is a huge punch to Android and it's easy to scramble to explain it away as an open/closed effect. Whatever that means.
Now I'm not totally convinced that they are inseperable, moreover I'd say that even had Google done the "walled garden" method they'd still not have the clout and balls to fight the carriers like Apple did/does (who else could?). That all said, though, in the larger dialogue comparing the smartphone philosophies of Google and Apple where things like open and closed are used mostly as inaccurate rhetoric tools the empirical evidence that carriers add a bunch of often undesirable drift to most phones they carry is a huge punch to Android and it's easy to scramble to explain it away as an open/closed effect. Whatever that means.