[Vibrant General] masterotaku:
To answer. I wouldn't pay a dime. A device should work satisfactorily as advertised. If it does not then I choose to take matters into my own hands, either by getting another device or indulging in a community like this one. I just don't think it's as simple as your implying.

Money is a motivator for manufacturers and carriers, but only in the sense of how it impacts meeting deadlines and release schedules. No amount of theoretical payola from end users is going to change this. End users and their perceptions do matter, even to manufacturers. But we're kidding ourselves if we think that our goals here in a place like XDA represent anything remotely close to the majority. They do not.

Android brings an entirely different sort of OS ecosystem to the table than consumers have been accustomed to, and more importantly entirely different than what carriers and manufacturers are accustomed to.

Much of what we have seen in the past few years with regards slow or nonexistent updates has been due to how manufacturers initially approached Android as simply a way to stave off significant R&D. Manufacturers are doing better in this regard as of late, because the ecosystem as a whole is maturing. The market is now lucrative and extensive, but competition is rife.

It is these competitive forces AND ONLY THESE that will improve the situation. Indeed it can be readily argued that this above all else is what has made such update issues ameliorate themselves. The most jaded among us can certainly realize things are much better now for Android as a whole than they were a year ago. Orders of magnitude so!!

Even so, realize that manufacturers will only do what they deem is in their interests when developing for their products. No matter how capable the hardware, or how "open" the infrastructure, manufacturers are in this for profit (as well they should be). Many will realize that supporting existing hardware is in their best interest, but as we've seen in similar scenarios in the PC universe, they will do this to varying degrees and for their own reasons. Some will do better than others and perhaps some of that will play out well with end users and gain them loyal customers. It's as likely that customers will simply go elsewhere because they're enticed to do so. This simply isn't as simple a problem as it was when this whole Android sleighride started anymore.

Communities like XDA have a role to play, and the developers and their efforts made here recontribute to everyone involved. But lets not kid ourselves. The performance of most devices as they ship is, to varying degrees, satisfactory. Most users are not zealots (and lets be frank, most XDA people *ARE*), and many of the concerns expressed here are not only unrealistic they are pointless. It is difficult enough to come up with a concrete list of precisely why 2.3 is better than 2.2, or 2.1 amongst ourselves as it is. To most end users perception (and thus most manufacturers) these distinctions are trivial and meaningless.

XDA is a hacker's maven. An important one, and a valuable one to those of us who participate here. But Android itself is no longer *just* a hacker's wet dream. It's a commercial juggernaut of a platform that is living and thriving quite nicely with or without us as this stage.