As long as Google stays in line with their motto, making key technologies open-source and mostly for free, it's pretty different from PR BS from others. Yes, it is a company, but thinking that every company is the same is oversimplification. I don't think I'm getting free lunch, I think I'm getting lunch for a price way better, and suppose that's because this company understand best the new economics of the digital world.
It's different saying "I am no evil" and "I am an angel".

Mobile devices sales outnumber desktop ones right now; display is way more important in the common use of a mobile than in desktop; desktop displays can be stacked... Further on, the more heated mobile market will adopt the new technology before, it's not like they are "creating" it.

And for the move towards wide 16:9 displays, that started when another big market on it's own (HD TV sets) influenced the desktop display market.

So you have to ways: pay less to "follow" other market's choice, or pay more to niche market. I guess the economical choice sounds more like "obvious" than "ridiculous".

Ok for that.
But if the homebrew isn't degrading the PSN? Like, if the homebrew is used with net offline, and only official games played via PSN, is it right for Sony to ban that machine? Will Sony do that?
Is it right to punish someone for a "possible" damage, preventively?

but no 'strong ties' appear out of nowhere. Social media do contribute to begin the ties. But to think they're the only ties we need is plain dumb.

You are assuming that the price doesn't change when the option is 1, 2 ou 3. Also, the consumer pays the price expecting that the manufacturer had some less trouble and difficulty, less cost, to get to you the cheaper option. It's a perception issue. In your proposed comparsion, if the manufacturer has so many i7 so he may tune some down to i5, the consumer would find more fair if the manufacturer settled down the price on i7, just as the free market rules work. If that isn't happening, maybe it's a monopoly rising.

Think the other way around:
IF copying wasn't seen as "evil doing" by laws and property owners, does the world creative thinking would be harmed?
We can't simply put out piracy costs to point the evilness of it; it flashes the "circular reasoning alert". If piracy isn't evil, those who don't want to have their work copied all around would "protect" it, so to speak. In the end I suppose another "creative thinker" would create something that fills the same "gap" and release it. So on the bad side we have the delay. On the good side, no "prima donna" ego costs.
The social structure we actually live in like to have experts, the "leave it to the professionals" way of living. But is this the best way for creative work? In digital era, with Internet and interactive media in general, I think that's the problem that is arising.

Asking the creator if he had "proper rewards" for his creative work will always get diverse forms of "no".

Yes, there are losses by piracy (see the "Starsiege: Tribes" example). But I have tons of examples that the movie, music, etc I paid for wasn't worth the penny.

My child is, by far, the most beautiful in the world. No bias. I swear.