Choice quote from the article: "Simply put, Instapaper needs to be on popular reading devices. That category now includes at least three 7” Android tablets, probably with more to come. I realized last winter that I needed to address this demand, but I couldn’t do it myself. "
Given the wide variety of applications shared amongst the three markets (plus the successful installation of Google services including the Play Store on both), I think there's zero evidence that, from a developer's perspective, the Nook Color/Tablet and Kindle Fire are materially different from any Google-blessed Gingerbread-based tablet with the same specs, except that the Google-specific libraries and services are not installed.
I can understand compatibility worries about cheap, no-name non-Google-certified tablets, but that doesn't describe the Kindle Fire and Nook Color / Nook Tablet. The cheap, no-name tablets (and other devices) aren't a big part of the market outside the developing world. And the developing world is a whole different ball game for all sorts of reasons, not just Android device compatibility (e.g. the most significant competing platforms are Symbian and, arguably, SMS).
Marco writes articles post with a headline "Why I hate Android"[1]. Then when it turns out that (despite his attitude) people are making money on Android he decided to jump on board.
Many developers have hated the platforms they have developed on but do so because the platform allows them to make money.
It's worked this way since the beginning of industry i.e. decades.
The hate isn't the hypocrisy. Plenty of people, for example, hate Windows and develop for it without being hypocrites.
The hypocrisy is extensively claiming that the platform in question isn't profitable ("terrible development economics", "unlikely to recover those costs" [referring to development costs"), etc.), playing up issues like fragmentation and generally arguing in almost every way possible to other developers that you shouldn't be on this platform... and then turning around and jumping on board anyway.
In fact, given the timeframe Marco talked about (last winter), it is entirely possible he was publicly arguing against Android development while Instapaper for Android was being developed. I can understand why he'd do that from a business perspective: Marco wouldn't want to tip off competitors to his change in thinking (note that Readability launched on Android and ReadItLater had gone radio-silent before relaunching as Pocket during the period in question), but that doesn't make him less of a hypocrite.
The fact is that Google has handled the Android ecosystem poorly and reflects where their motivation lies. Microsoft for decades has shown that it is possible to support a wide variety of innovation on top of their core OS whilst still allowing updates to be made. People such as yourself who continue to make excuses for ineptitude do nobody any favours.
Google has handled the Android ecosystem neutrally, not poorly. It is the device makers and the carriers that are responsible for the situation you're talking about with updates.
It is in Google's interest for device makers to support updates to the latest Android release so long as the hardware is capable of supporting the newest versions (of course, limits to this sort of backward compatibility would always exist, just as they do in the iOS world).
Google could have just as easily bargained for the same kind of terms that Apple gets on iOS devices with carriers. No pack-in garbage, no mucking about with the OS. If not with the G1, certainly with the later releases.
Their desire to have Android be "open" is also its greatest weakness.
Right, and what about the hundreds of other manufacturers of Android phones?
I see what they were going for, but their execution frankly sucked.
You can't really accuse them of both, either they were trying to copy Apple's business model and failed spectacularly, or they were following their own business model with great success. Personally I'd lean towards the latter, particularly as their own business model has found them providing search, video and maps by default to Apple's platform as well and getting map data in return.
(Also, one of Microsoft's biggest problems in recent times is... getting people to upgrade. This applies to the OS, the browser and Office. As a response they tried to move people to a model where they pay by subscription regardless of whether they upgrade or not, much like Google's advertising based model.)