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I think this conflates “ecosystem” with “closed ecosystem” or “walled garden.”
I agree that closed ecosystems are frustrating lock-in tactics. But open ecosystems exist - KDE connect actually shows a good example. It was built for the KDE ecosystem (desktop environment, apps, and services that integrate and work well with each other), but makes the protocol open, so clients can exist for Gnome, and other platforms.
I recognize this is mostly semantics, but wanted to call it out because I think the integration and interoperability afforded by an “ecosystem” is extremely user friendly in general. It only becomes a problem when it is weaponized to lock you in.
Google is certainly guilty of killing off lots of products, but:
The video demonstrates the ecosystem working now, using features that have existed for years, most of which work across hardware platforms from multiple vendors, as well as multiple operating systems (i.e. features that won’t disappear on Google’s whim, because they don’t actually control the tech, they leverage open standards, etc).
Let’s also not pretend like Apple has never killed a product, service, or feature. Ecosystems grow, shrink, and change all the time. If you prefer one offering over the other, use it. That’s the entire point of the video.
Since most phones (if not all), use an encrypted filesystem. With such, no service can’t start if the device isn’t initially unlocked after reboot, including Find my device.
Android developers can specify that their apps need to run before the pin is entered, via direct boot mode. This is how alarms still work, even if your phone takes an upgrade overnight, and restarts automatically as part of that process.
I can’t say whether Google’s Find My Device currently does this, but there is no technical reason it can’t.
Having daily driven Windows (~6 years growing up), MacOS (8+ years for work), Linux (~18 years on personal and (some) work machines), and ChromeOS (~2 years, on a cheap Chromebook used while I was traveling places I didn’t want to take an expensive machine), if my options were Windows, MacOS, or ChromeOS, I would 100% take ChromeOS. Even on cheap hardware, it was a better user experience than the others… Though I will caveat that with: when I had to do work that required heavy lifting, I remoted into my Linux desktop. But that was a hardware limitation, rather than a software limitation.
For people who know what they’re doing, I recommend traditional Linux. For those who don’t, I recommend ChromeOS. Mac and Windows are both also run by mega corps, they’re all spying on users… at least ChromeOS is performant and stable.