The PC started its life as a hobby platform. And there were attempts to challenge the open model - the game consoles for example required devs to license their

The PC started its life as a hobby platform. And there were attempts to challenge the open model - the game consoles for example required devs to license their SDKs and often controllers publishing / retail distribution. But no one seriously succeeded with a closed PC experience because no one could (or wanted to) do it all - be a fully integrated retail ecosystem - at the time when facing consumers. The internet was arguably a prerequisite for this: all software was sold in physical boxes and unlike game software , the hobby experience meant there was just too much available that was cheap/free/shareware. (My favorite was the assembly hex codes published in magazines like Ahoy! That you’d type in). Plus, the security of a curated store was on few minds until the late 90s with the internet. Viruses and Trojans existed but they were spread through physical media. also, Microsoft already was getting its tax from users in the form of Windows licensing, which eventually was deemed anticompetitive due to their exclusivity arrangements. The closest to a curated ecosystem started with Qlink, CompuServe, AOL and other online services.