alt Hacker News> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it.
This happens all the time, especially with Apple. Complaints about the inability to side load or use alternative stores for example. Nobody forced you to buy it. It's stupid when people do it for Apple and it's stupid when they do it for Framework.
I'd say comparing hardware vs software is very different. If there were 5+ competing OS's with decent market share, maybe you'd have a point there. But the reality is that mobile software is controlled by 2 trillionaire tech companies that made use of anti-competitive measures to prevent consumer alternatives.
Heck maybe even 3. The desktop scene doesn't feel that much better, but them all allowing "sideloading" as we call it today alleviates full control of the OS.