Sony has always been pretty anti consumer. I’m addition to the root kit thing, they have a history of pushing their own propietary crap as open standards. Sometimes successfully (blu ray) and sometimes not (memory stick). They also removed the “other OS” (Linux) option from the PS3 midway through the console’s life cycle.

I’m sure there’s more examples, but they’ve been a bottom tier brand for a long time due to this for me.