Profit motive as the only motive, combined with scale, mostly, with a side of "freedom helps bad people do bad things" variations.
ex: In many respects there is vastly more effort involved in making them general purpose computing devices. Why harm profits catering to people who want that when the crushingly vast majority don't want it, when they can't be trusted to use it (directly or indirectly) without messing something up (harming profit via support costs), and when they aren't able to prevent bad actors from misusing it and harming them (again harming profits)?
ex: Why do game developers skip story? Because 90% of the market doesn't care about it. Why do movie studios crank out films with garbage stories/plot? Because 90% of the market doesn't care about it. As long as people and therefore companies believe that generating revenue is the only thing that matters, this results.
ex: In many respects there is vastly more effort involved in making them general purpose computing devices. Why harm profits catering to people who want that when the crushingly vast majority don't want it, when they can't be trusted to use it (directly or indirectly) without messing something up (harming profit via support costs), and when they aren't able to prevent bad actors from misusing it and harming them (again harming profits)?
ex: Why do game developers skip story? Because 90% of the market doesn't care about it. Why do movie studios crank out films with garbage stories/plot? Because 90% of the market doesn't care about it. As long as people and therefore companies believe that generating revenue is the only thing that matters, this results.