That is why I put "free" in quotations. Furthermore, many devices sold do allow you to at least put open source equivalents on them on these devices; many flagship phones allow this with some know-how. On the scale of freedom from 0 to 10 (0 being a Lumia, 10 being the computer that RMS uses), I'd say most Android devices are a 3, with many devices being able to go up to a 6 and some devices going up to an 8 with Replicant.
Nonetheless, people fail to recognize the freedoms that Android does give you, and only criticize the freedoms that it doesn't give - the reasons why it's not a 10. If not for Android, I'd wager we would not be able to go beyond 2 (≈ iOS) on the freedom scale when buying mobile phones. That would be bad, and it seems zealots fail to recognize this (that's probably why they are zealots in the first place).
Nonetheless, people fail to recognize the freedoms that Android does give you, and only criticize the freedoms that it doesn't give - the reasons why it's not a 10. If not for Android, I'd wager we would not be able to go beyond 2 (≈ iOS) on the freedom scale when buying mobile phones. That would be bad, and it seems zealots fail to recognize this (that's probably why they are zealots in the first place).