> They force HW manufacturers to keep their specs secret

Spoken like someone who has never ever worked with any hardware manufacturers. They do not need reasons for that. They all believe their mundane shit is the most secret-worthy shit ever. They have always done this. This predates google, and will outlive it.

Often it is because they don't know their own devices. We got a dev board from Qualcomm once and the documentation was totally bogus.