[taffer]

Light bulbs and cars have significant marginal costs that software does not have. Some types of software (operating systems, DB, browsers) also have a network or platform effect, so people actually have an incentive to get other people to use or even improve their software.

[fierarul]

Even so, geek themselves are a pretty nice market. Would you not buy an open source printer? I know I hate HP after the last one died just after warranty ended and they have no spare parts whatsoever.

Same with other things. I would buy those things.

And if they really are good they can become a mass market product.

Yet, we only get a phone or something and that's it.

[segfaultbuserr]

My answer would be: The cost of distributing or running a software package is almost zero, same is not true for hardware, followed by an argument of how hardware manufacturing depends on the economics of scale, unlike software.

However, I soon realized your question is much deeper. It is not "Would you not buy an open source printer?", but "If you can buy an open source phone, would you not buy a printer?" - I think it's a good thought-provoking question. I'm not sure about the answer yet.