Agree - the firmware is never really a selling point.
But a shop built around routers could have a few angles:
1) Privacy/ ad-protection native (as you say)
2) High security and performance (fully tuned DD-WRT). Even solving bufferbloat for end users would be amazing - the world is barely catching up on that.
3) Good software add-ons that aren't proprietary junk. Asset management/upgrade, sign-in/landing pages, monitoring and trafffic shaping that holds up, etc.
Bunlding FOSS to solve these problems well, even on some else's hardware, does seem like work, and work can be charged for.
1) Privacy/ ad-protection native (as you say)
2) High security and performance (fully tuned DD-WRT). Even solving bufferbloat for end users would be amazing - the world is barely catching up on that.
3) Good software add-ons that aren't proprietary junk. Asset management/upgrade, sign-in/landing pages, monitoring and trafffic shaping that holds up, etc.
Bunlding FOSS to solve these problems well, even on some else's hardware, does seem like work, and work can be charged for.