“In the end, it’s okay to compare different ROMs, or Android vs. iPhone flashing. You’re on the same playing field. But a flashed one vs. another one that is stock isn’t. You can no longer compare the two when talking about the overall market, because only a minuscule percentage of people will be flashing. Oh yes, tens of thousands of people are flashing, but out of tens of millions of smartphones sold every year.”
Yes, and those people that don’t must be OK with their gimped phones. I’m not. Ignorance really is bliss.
It's not a matter of being okay with a gimped phone, or not having the acumen to flash. It's about not wanting to go outside of the fully supported comfort zone of regular user. Apple has been so incredibly successful because they turned what used to be geek toys into regular user devices, consumer appliances. People like that comfort, and few stray outside of it. This is especially true in high-tech devices, where people are scared to fiddle with the magic that makes things work.
Admittedly, "regular user" changes. Few people these days would open up the back of their TV to see what's broken. Forty years ago, we'd pull off the back panel and take a few tubes to the drugstore to put on a tester strip at the counter. We'd buy a replacement tubes, go home, and stick them in. But even then not everybody was comfortable with that. Roving repairmen were common, and they had suitcases with all of the most common tubes, and would replace yours at home.