If you buy the right hardware, you can get rid of all of the Google stuff if you want.

Also, it is open source, so you've got a very good base to fork from to make something of your own, should you so choose. I think we'll see more of that in the future.

Sure, Google adds some stuff on top, but I think that's a small price to pay for all the free stuff you get underneath, which is more than enough to build your own Google-free system should you choose.