Maybe the price is so low because "you" are the product. This is Google's business model; they offer everything to you for freem, but you are the product that they sell to people who wnat to advertise. They also (can) make money on mining your data, emails, etc. A closed hardware that needs an internet connection to function can do all of that talking-to-the-mothership in addition to serving you ads. I never thought when I was younger that things could work this way.