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SRAM is more “innovative” by bringing new shiny things to market much faster than Shimano. But I’ve found over the years SRAM has brought some things to market a little too st at the expense of quality and warranty issues. Shimano on the other hand is slower to adapt and respond, but historically their execution is much better. Their new products typically (not always)have less issues associated with them.

Try riding a shimano derailleur with the clutch switched off and you'll feel the difference in performance shifting wise straight away.

Shimano fishing is only about 20-25% of the revenue, they are still primarily making bike parts. But IIRC they absolutely dominate OEM lowerend market and this is the part of the market SRAM doesnt even compete in. In the end Shimano is still 3 billion company while SRAM is 1 billion company, even if we exclude fishing they still make double the revenue of SRAM. But I agree, everything in high end market (mtb and road) has been absolutely dominated by SRAM lately when it comes to technology, their strategy (to offer pretty much every bike component) has been really...

To be honest changing the spline is not that much engineering work, especially since Ochain has already done the work... It could be one small interchangeable part even. I understand and mostly agree with what you are saying, but in this specific case it is 100 % keeping the garden walled.

I agree with that analysis for almost every type of component but I would have thought O-Chain would be an outlier. I can't see that many OEMs putting O-Chain on bikes other than DH bikes, primarily because it's a large cost they can cut that a non-enthusiast consumer that walks into a shop will not notice if it's a regular chainring instead, but will notice the extra couple hundred dollars in cost. DH bikes are also so much less of the overall market share, and most of them are bought by hardcore enthusiasts that are likely to customize the components...