> We could have had other competitors, but nobody wanted them.

Don't blame individual consumers. Bad things happen at a societal level all the time. Carbon emissions, etc. We're powerless to stop it without governmental intervention.

Your average consumer isn't educated on marketplace behaviors and doesn't understand how a lack of consumer choice leads to increased prices, inflexibility, taxation of smaller marketplace participants, less innovation, less freedom, etc. They simply can't understand the complexities of the case as deep familiarity isn't a part of their daily lives.

The large players that set these rules are squarely to blame.

> I don't think you can really blame Google or Apple for any of these failures in the same way Microsoft could be blamed in the 90's for their abuses.

You can install whatever you want on a Microsoft PC.

> We could have had other competitors, but nobody wanted them

People didn't even get a choice. Google bullied Windows Phone out of the market.

People won't switch to a platform without apps. Microsoft tried to fix that, made an HTML5 youtube app. Google threw a fit and blocked it, twice. MS even followed what Google told them to do, and still blocked the app.

Google saw great hardware, and an OS that was gaining media attention (Windows phone at the time had a lot of positive reviews, and the Nokia Lumnia phones were great, and better cameras than any Android at the time) and used their market power to kill it.