Sometimes it's fun to mod something that other people can also easily buy and follow your mod recipe. It's more of a network effect than publishing Gerbers and a BOM.

For example, there are (or maybe were) lots of cheap LED controllers that use proprietary phone apps, but if you crack them open, you find that they're ESP-8266-based, and if you can find the right locations on the PCB, you can reflash them with WLED.