Since I wrote this, I keep returning to it because it lies at the heart of why Apple is as successful as it is. I began considering the whole idea of "Gotcha Capitalism," a term coined by Bob Sullivan in the book by the same name. But ultimately, Gotcha Capitalism is related to why Apple's been so successful (and why so many of its competitors have not), but it's not the reason. Gotcha Capitalism mostly about large corporations (telecoms, hospitality, banks) using hidden fees to extract money from unsuspecting consumers. All of it is strictly legal as codified by the small print in contracts, but it's scarcely ethical. And it's everywhere. The reason I thought it was relevant (and to a certain extent it is), is that the mindset it requires is one that approaches business from the perspective of: where are the untapped revenue streams in our customer base? And how can we tap those revenue streams?
The android universe is hobbled to a large extent by the carriers, who seem to exclusively have this way of thinking. They have their customer base on contracts that they must pay handsomely to break. And while within that contract, subscribers must, usually, buy phones from the carrier, onto which they can drop crapware which the carriers' "partners" pay them handsomely to include, and which their customers cannot remove from their devices.
It goes beyond the carriers too. The handset makers would rather you buy a new phone than make it easy (or even possible) to upgrade the OS on your device. New handsets = new revenue stream.
But then this article by James Allworth in the Harvard Business Review nailed it. It goes beyond what I had been thinking about. It focuses on the Innovators' Dilemma and the assertion that Steve Jobs solved it with Apple. But, as he mentions in the piece, Jobs and Apple did this by putting satisfying the customer over profit. Rather than happy, satisfied customers as an optional by-product of the pursuit of profit, at Apple, profit is the by-product of the relentless pursuit of making the next insanely great thing. The thing that will its users happy every time they interact with it.