In short, what Google announced today wasn’t just the Nexus One, but America’s first carrier-independent smartphone store; the Google store is now the only smartphone store in the US where, for every phone on offer, you first pick which phone you want, and then you pick a network and a plan on that network, choosing from among every network on the platform. So you can comparison shop among networks based purely on plan price and network quality, because you already have your phone picked out.
That’s the key point, methink.
A Frog in the Valley 