[jacknews]

Look at say washing machines.

How many different models/brands are on the market?

I estimate many hundreds, if not thousands.

Each model/brand comes with some degree of custom design and engineering, documentation, etc, etc. All for fragmented production runs, all to try to gain proprietary advantage.

Why do we need so many? We really don't actually, maybe just a dozen or two to address various niches.

If companies just picked up an open source design (which would be constantly improving, just as with software), they could save many of those costs, and potentially even more by scaling up volume of production.