If meego had died there, we would have the same situation we have now: a duopoly. So no difference in there.


If jolla never existed; where would the difference be?

Assuming libhybris would have been created (that is, before the operating system) a hypotetical jolla-like company , would have had better chances by focussing excusively to skip hardware development and focus on existing hw. This would have allowed them to keep costs at a bare minimum, which would have given them more runway,as well as avoiding hyper-hyped underperforming devices.

Sure, perhaps the initial set of HW would have been extremely limited to start with; but most likely enough to attract attention from operators (and perhaps HW vendors), given the high differentiation from the top two.