Not only is this the reason the author percieves the situation as harmful, but avoiding the harm is entirely within the author's control. Just purchase different devices.
After all these years purchasing only iDevices, it can actually be pretty difficult for many of these people (particularly journalists) to even envision purchasing and using a non-Apple device. They've just been drinking the Kool-aid for far too long.
Well, there are rational reasons, too. At this point people have spent five years building up a collection of apps- if you switch to Android, you lose the whole lot.
That really depends on how flexible you are as a user. Maybe you cannot get the exact stack of apps that you currently have, but I'm quite sure you can find the same kinds of functionality on both sides of the app store fences.
Not only is this the reason the author percieves the situation as harmful, but avoiding the harm is entirely within the author's control. Just purchase different devices.