There's another path that information takes. Even if web developers still supported IE, they knew about better browsers and used them. Since most IT people are also doing computer support for their family and are considered more skilled by friends, alternative browsers found their way to "normal" people. Remember that there was almost no marketing from Mozilla (at least in Europe) before Firefox came out... and somehow they got to the current position. I converted a couple of friends and one company myself.

I read a lot of stories like this one and I'm sure I will buy a different phone. People I meet may notice and hopefully I will convince them to look at alternatives too. There is some real influence that comes from geeks and developers - even if it starts small :)

Blackberry is the #1 smartphone, yet the app ecosystem there is pretty dismal. Clearly there is another dynamic at work there, and pure installed base isn't as compelling a factor as it seems. One reason could be that the Blackberry platform is absolutely horrible to develop on.

Why is it horrible? Do they have anything similar to the App Store, btw?

They have the Blackberry App World.

It's horrible because the platform views the web as an afterthought, so there are no modern APIs for dealing with it. The Java version is ancient as well, and you have ridiculously small system limitations, like number of open files and such. I could go on, it's so bad it's almost comical.

This is why there isn't a really healthy app ecosystem, only people who are paid enough by their employers to offset the pain develop apps, or people just pay Blackberry itself to develop something for them.