It’s only the US carriers that love the control. I think you’ll find that European carriers are much more open and update much more frequently. There is also a set standard thanks to GSM (which Verizon completely obliterates with its CDMA).
This won’t be a problem. Google will sell them unlocked, and your updates will come directly from Google. Carriers will sell them subsidised, and while your updates are still from Google, they will have to be checked by the carrier first before they get to you. In Europe, this only usually means a few weeks to a month of extra time.
That is of course assuming Google doesn’t integrate it’s own iOS-style OTA update mechanism into the OS so that on ANY device the update comes directly from Google’s servers and not from the carrier.
