I hope early home robotics will be like a game console launch - a community rush to break through any initial barriers to homebrew. Specific early firmwares will be desirable and a whole community will form around creating exploits and running user software. As old robot units fall out of service and are sold in bulk, the community will pick them up and keep them running.

which means that late stage robotics (or game consoles) become very heavily locked walled gardens as every exploit gets patched.

Sex robots.