I think you're getting at the real objection a lot of people have to Apple, which is that they're such a big and powerful force in the market that their practic

I think you're getting at the real objection a lot of people have to Apple, which is that they're such a big and powerful force in the market that their practices can make a particular strategy seem normal. While the reasoning behind keeping software ecosystems and physical hardware closed is actually good—keeping out the well-meaning but poorly-trained developers and amateur tinkerers who want to "repair" or "upgrade" your hardware, not to mention enforcing the consistent user experience as mentioned in the article—those practices also have other effects which are troubling in the long-term, which is what a lot of "techies" object to. I am not in Apple's market, so their practices don't affect me directly as a user. However, their practices do affect me in that having one of the largest, most successful companies in the world engage in what I see as problematic practices tells other companies that it's a good, or at least tenable, idea. In the future, a fledgling company could see a choice between the Pro-Consumer But Difficult path and the Closed Everything But Simple path, and think, "Well, Apple did it, so I guess if we do it, it's okay." And that's why I find Apple troubling.