You're not going to legislate or regulate a platform into existence. Apple and Google didn't appear on the scene yesterday. They both started at zero users amid a market full of competitors. They are the competitive upstarts that actually competed and and were successful.
Before the iPhone and Android there were a number of mobile platforms that all sucked in their own special ways. The mobile market was the incumbents' market to lose and they then lost of their own accord.
IMO Windows Phone was a superior alternative yet could not complete because the two incumbents were too entrenched. Network effects don't impact only users but developers as well.
> IMO Windows Phone was a superior alternative yet could not complete because the two incumbents were too entrenched.
Seriously? Windows Phone flopped because Microsoft couldn't get its act together. IE sucked and couldn't handle even mobile sites that iOS and Android had no problem with. The messaging and e-mail had anemic features. And Microsoft simply couldn't execute on a third party developer strategy.
For whatever interesting ideas the OS had it was a dumpster fire of execution. It didn't help them at all that Windows Phone 7 had no backwards compatibility with Windows Mobile so they burned anyone invested in that platform. They repeated the trick with Windows Phone 8 where Windows Phone 7 devices couldn't run 8. Being the third place platform and repeatedly burning your customers was just an asinine choice for Microsoft.
Windows Phone had interesting features and UI concepts. What killed it was Microsoft's absolutely terrible execution. It had little to do with Apple and Google being "entrenched". Microsoft wrapped a handful of interesting features or good hardware (Nokia phones) in layers of crap.
Before the iPhone and Android there were a number of mobile platforms that all sucked in their own special ways. The mobile market was the incumbents' market to lose and they then lost of their own accord.