Comment by ozgung

15 hours ago

I think this was because of the “IBM PC Compatible” market. IBM was using off-the-shelf components for its PC system and other manufacturers reverse engineered and cloned the system and started selling IBM clones. Interestingly Microsoft who controlled the OS became the monopoly and gatekeeper of that market, not IBM (hardware). MS was making a ton of money by selling OS licenses and online software stores was not a thing since the Internet was nonexistent/limited. “Developers, developers, developers” were the king in that business model so they didn’t need to give a cut to MS or IBM to build on a PC system.

Saying that I think the situation in the smartphones today is less about the business model and more about control and surveillance.