I understand your point but I don't think it's as influential as you make out. First, you're assuming that developers have (sufficient) influence over swathes

I understand your point but I don't think it's as influential as you make out. First, you're assuming that developers have (sufficient) influence over swathes of non-developers. I'm not sure that's true, especially in the case of hardware. Second, it's in developers' "profit-minded interest" to get their stuff on every relevant platform. It's where the customers are that matters. Finally, no matter how good the product is, I doubt any technically capable folks (not just devs) want to end up as the de-facto 'tech-support guy' for all the people they convinced to sign-up.