I don't see how you can say that this is both "not a problem" and "why you shouldn't buy into closed, walled-garden products." Best I can tell, the thing Philips did here that people are objecting to is turning Philips Hue into a walled garden where before it was not. So if this is an example of why you shouldn't buy into closed, walled-garden products, then it sounds like this product's owners have a legitimate problem with what Philips did here.
I unfortunately don't know the entire history here, but it really comes down to what was purchased.
If Philips sold the Philips Hue hub as a generic controller for all Zigbee lights, then yeah, I'd agree: they essentially did a bait-and-switch after purchase, and this is totally wrong. Like class-action lawsuit wrong.
If they sold it as a controller for Philips bulbs without mentioning Zigbee interoperability, then it's customer-hostile, to be sure, but not necessarily wrong, in my eyes.
