closed eco-system = extinction
as you noted, i-pods took off when they became windows compatible.
anytime the unifying message of a brand is my way or the hiway, death is coming.
when amzn introduced a reader, jobs said nobody reads anymore.
if "presence" is how cool you are, tribal warfare becomes the definition of unifying the ecosystem.
yeah, "control vs community" something of an argument that is generally called "politics"--in this case the politics of billionaires as cultural heros, and the culture that results.
isn't it about time to lose that world view??
btw, opening the platform doesn't create losing control of the hardware, unless what u mean is writing software that just doesn't work; but then, darwin has a cure for that.
