Apple doesn't care a crap about whether something is open or closed. They care only about the end user experience. They will support a standard when it is in their best interests to do so, and either drop support for it and / or fork the standard when it suits their own objectives.
The removal of the 3.5mm jack was crucial to making the iPhone waterproof (recent water tests have shown the iPhone 7 is easily as waterproof as the S7, if not more, despite its lower certification). Apple wants you to go bluetooth (also another open standard); lightning is simply there as a stopgap measure if you still need a wired connection.
Proprietary technology which brings legitimate benefits to me as the end user. Benefits which very often cannot be had anywhere else outside of the Apple ecosystem, no matter how much I am willing to pay. For example, up till now, nobody has managed to come up with a pair of bluetooth headphones that can easily pair to a device and switch connections. Not sure if Apple will decide to license their W1 chip tech though. I seriously hope they do.
https://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/
Apple equips third party manufacturers with the authorized hardware components, tools, documentation, and technical support necessary. There might be some measure of profit involved, but all this certainly isn't free. It certainly goes a long way towards ensuring a certain degree of standard in lightning accessories. Just look at the crapshoot that is the USB-C cable.
I can't help but agree, everything Apple is doing is ultimately to benefit Apple customers. Shocker, why exactly shouldn't they be allowed to improve upon their products?
Let's take the W1 as an example as it's relevant to this subject. As it stands Apple have sId they have no intention to supply or license W1 to third parties. That may change, but for now, so what?
Apple has made something to Improve performance and simplicity of operation with Apple manufactured headphones on Apple manufactured devices, using an Apple infrastructure to benefit Apple customers. Yes that is despicable.
It is there in addition to standard universal Bluetooth, not to replace it. So I, as an Apple customer am looking forward to what they do and where they take this new development as it has an impact on me as an Apple customer.
My friends who own Android devices tell me they couldn't give a flying monkeys about it. They seem to think for some odd reason that it has no impact on them whatsoever. That should they want to use any headphones that have a W1 chip in them, they can. I was shocked and stunned, they can still use them? Even though there's an Apple chip in there, what the hell?
We broached the subject of headphones, for example, in our discussion that would not be wireless and instead would only have a physical interface. This, to my surprise was mostly met with a shrug. It seems that there will be alternatives available to the Lightning only headphones and that just as there has been for some time now, some will come equipped with more than one cable type.
Beyond that, when we reached the speculation part of the conversation all but two of us agreed that there would, before long be adapters to get around any and all limitations. We theorised that as the Lightning cable security was bypassed by the Chinese copyists, this would lead to all sorts of unofficial converters/adapters splitters and, well, pretty much anything else.
Of course this is just one group of people. But as a mixed group of Android and iOS users we agreed it's all a big fuss over nothing and ultimately when it dies down it'll end up being for the greater good.
Why am I rambling on telling you this? God only knows, my morphine has kicked in and I felt like typing instead of working