> Seems irrelevant though - the internet exists. I'll never have a problem getting the code I need, provided it exists

That assumes all code is open source, or else proprietary code shipped with source. That's not the world we live in. Most businesses run at least some closed source on-premise software. Open source is great at providing solutions to problems most people have. But when you start looking at specialised software which is highly industry-specific, suddenly open source starts to look a lot more patchy, and a closed source solution is often the only realistic option.

For example, at many engineering firms (whatever type of engineering they may be doing), you will find heaps of closed source software being used every day. For much of it, there simply is no open source solution available – or if there is, it is missing major features, or is clunky/buggy/poorly-designed, and the amount of extra cost in adopting it will be a lot more than just continuing to pay for the closed source alternative.

I agree with this - but my point is that I think the difficulty of compiling to alternative architectures is more of an impediment. If it's easy, then company's will just do it, give or take "we don't want to support that platform".

> Seems irrelevant though - the internet exists.

... but it's not always useful. MSI motherboards doing "secure boot" can't check for key revocation until after they've booted :( Sometimes you just have to rely on what you've got.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/05/leak-...