And as for "why are not selling this in every retail store?", the answer is the same - because if they were, no one would buy them. I found the situation curious, while everyone complains about it, only very few people are trying to do anything about it. Perhaps the breaking point was not reached yet, and something big has to happen to change people's perspective.
> And as for "why are not selling this in every retail store?", the answer is the same - because if they were, no one would buy them.
That's purely hypothetical. How could any prove or disprove the assertion?
The general point, though, is that consumer awareness is essential for sales. People won't buy things that they don't know about. As an indie developer myself, I'm painfully aware of this. It doesn't matter how great one's product is if nobody knows about it. Advertising is very expensive, so it requires vast capital outlays in order to get your products into the minds of consumers and onto the shelves of stores. The big established brands have a massive advantage, making it difficult for competitors to break into the market. Apple itself leveraged its existing brand, with Mac and iPod, in order to promote iPhone. And Apple's primary competitor is Google, who also was already an established brand via search and Chrome.
Remember that back in the day, Microsoft almost destroyed the entire desktop OS market. They almost killed Apple too. Only the Department of Justice put some kind of break on it, and Microsoft let Apple live in order to provide antitrust cover. If MS had for example simply withdrawn its apps from Mac—Office, Internet Explorer (remember that Internet Explorer was originally the default web browser on Mac OS X before Safari!)—Apple likely would have died.
It's not just about familiarity. People are willing to try new things. The actual problems are network effects and vendor lock-in.
The hardest part about switching from Facebook isn't installing some other app or anything like that, it's getting everyone else you know to switch from Facebook.
The hardest part about switching from Windows isn't installing Linux, it's getting e.g. game developers to target Linux before it has significant consumer market share.
That isn't to say that doing these thing is impossible, but it certainly isn't trivial, so anyone wondering why it hasn't happened already can't seriously think the only explanation is that nobody cares. It's like saying nobody cares about high healthcare costs -- of course they care, the question is what do we have to do to fix it?
I'm glad that Fairphones are available in stores right next to Xiaomis, but they cost three times the price for half the specifications. It may plausibly be cheaper to buy a Xiaomi phone and then personally sue Xiaomi to get it unlocked than to buy a Fairphone.
