Hate to break it to you, but NeXTSTEP failed in the marketplace. If Apple hadn't bought them, they'd still be gone.
But more importantly: who cares? There is no moral imperative to keep products alive. It's just stuff that people make. Products come and go, and founders owe you nothing.
Who cares right? Maybe Apple and Google and Microsoft should just merge. Then we can just use the same operating system for everything.
Can’t think of any downside!
I’m not mourning the loss of a product, I’m lamenting the negative externalities of acquisitions. Some of them are a net positive for sure but it seems like those are in the minority.
I don't understand your argument... there are quite a few operating systems receiving active development. For that matter, just with the Linux kernel there are dozens of operating system distributions, several based on BSD and more still when you consider ongoing support for Solaris forks and more bespoke OSes (redux, etc) and clones (ReactOS, Haiku, etc).
If YOU want another OS, there's nobody stopping you from developing, forking or otherwise funding the creation or developing one.
But more importantly: who cares? There is no moral imperative to keep products alive. It's just stuff that people make. Products come and go, and founders owe you nothing.