Cell-phone carriers have formed an oligopoly due to the extremely high cost of building nationwide service and the limited amount of mobile spectrum. This will naturally lead to a situation where the industry can stagnate and overcharge with there being very little pressure from new entrants to the market that try to exploit the market failure. Carrier-lockin makes this problem even worse because they make it even more expensive to use their services unless you lock yourself in longterm in exchange for a phone subsidy that amounts to a discount.
Sure, there are lots of concerns about Google having lots of information about you. But at least you have choices, and at least you don't have to pay Google $100/month and pay them more if you want to leave.
It's just naiive to think you can be successful without Google.
No. Only Google services are rendered practically unusable. Actually, they are rendered completely unusable.
The OS on the other hand, remains perfectly and completely usable.
That sounds like Google is not just selling it at cost but subsidizing it as well.
If you bring your own phone, you want to be looking at the prepaid arrangements. AT&T has considerably cheaper prepaid plans than their postpaid plans (I think it was like $40 cheaper when I looked?). T-Mobile's prepaid plans are even cheaper; I pay $30/month for 100 voice minutes ($0.10/minute overage, which I've hit a couple times), unlimited data (speed-throttled at 5GB), and unlimited texts.
I paid $350 for my Galaxy Nexus and ditched my $90/month AT&T postpaid plan for the $30/month T-Mobile prepaid plan, and the delta in plan costs paid off the cost of the phone (over a carrier subsidy) in about four months.
I'd blow through 200MB in three or four days though. =)