*cough* bullshit *cough*

That may be one of the most spectacularly ill-advised opening sections of a superficial industry punditry blog post I have ever read, and while it's interesting (in a rubbernecking sort of way) as a result, I've decided to try to put it out of its misery by flagging it.

> I would be very interested in what constitutes “selling” a phone. Given how many free Android phones have been thrown at developers recently, I suspect most of this “selling” does not involve customers voting with their wallet so much as choosing the “free” option.

Um, what? Google gives away a few hundred (few thousand? not sure how big I/O is, but it doesn't matter) phones at conferences, and suddenly the 60k phones/day that they're selling are all given away for free?

I was looking at new phones recently, and I don't think I saw a single Android phone that was even "free" as in "paid for by 2 years of service fees." The Incredible is $200 and they can't keep it in stock. The Droid sold very well at $200. Sure, older phones like the Eris are cheaper, but that's how the electronics market works. Apple's doing the same thing by selling the 3G for $99.

Lisa: They can't seriously expect us to swallow that tripe.