Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Homebrew scenes seem like a candidate for doing things "the right way", but culturally they're a lot closer to piracy scenes than anyone wants to admit, at least in front of a court. I realize the homebrew scene doesn't view themselves this way, but I pretty much view them as part of the piracy scene even when they are antagonistic towards those who pirate games. The main difference is that they are "pirating" hard…
> it creates a huge disincentive to those who want to create open platforms since it is going to be nearly impossible for them to get any traction when they are up against jailbroken devices from huge multinational corporations. I'm not so sure about that. More specifically, I wonder if there are more or fewer Steam Decks in the wild than jailbroken Nintendo Switch units.
The Steam Deck, well, that has other things going for it. Yes, it is an open platform. Yet it, along with similar devices, are also PC compatible. That makes it appealing to developers, may they be developing games for Linux or Windows. Perhaps the biggest thing going for it is being backed by Valve, which is large enough to coexist with Nintendo and is unusual for a larger company in that they value an open ecosystem. To understand how unusual that is for a large player entering the market, just look at the original Xbox.