iPhone or Android, does the ecosystem lock in actually matter as much as people claim

[Sandman_Finisher]

The iPhone versus Android debate has been running for close to two decades now and shows no sign of ever fully resolving, largely because the two platforms are built around genuinely different philosophies rather than one simply being a worse copy of the other. Apple's ecosystem lock in, where an iPhone works seamlessly with a Mac, an iPad, AirPods and other Apple devices, gets held up as either the platform's biggest selling point or its most restrictive downside depending entirely on who you ask and how invested they already are in that ecosystem.

Android's openness allows for far more customisation and a much wider range of hardware price points and manufacturers to actually choose from, at the cost of a less unified overall experience across different brands and a more fragmented software update situation depending heavily on the specific manufacturer involved. Do you think ecosystem lock in actually matters as much in practice as people online tend to argue, or is the whole debate mostly about brand loyalty and sunk cost at this point rather than any genuine functional difference?