I'm not sure why you bring up Samsung's motives. I know why they're doing it and I know why it's wrong.
I'm saying that some people might not care about the voice assistant on their phones, regardless how much marketing money Google and Apple spend on it.
For some people, having Ok Google being replaced with S-Voice is not an issue at all. It's not even that useful, especially not outside the US. Not to mention that you can still use it, just not when the phone is locked, which is a very specific situation. If customers care about this specific thing, they should make it loud and clear that they're not going to support Samsung's behavior and trash it for having such a shitty replacement (which is what reviews already do).
I also didn't say that Samsung choose wireless charging over a voice assistant. I said that I would do that. Instantly. In a heartbeat. Google Now and Ok Google is that worthless to me. Google Now more so than Ok Google. I completely disabled that shit and replaced it with Cortana, because Now only showed me garbage and it got worse over time. "Oh hey, you said that you're interested in tech. Here are 10 shitty clickbait blurbs from The Verge, even though you've said that you're not interested in their stories a thousand times!" No idea how they could fuck this up so badly.
I'm using a Nexus 5 over an iPhone, because it was cheaper. I buy my phones off-contract and smartphones are usually not worth more than 400 bucks to me. That rules pretty much every iPhone out (the SE is 479 bucks here). Not to mention that iOS looks terrible and gaudy, while I love the material design aesthetics.