It's less hostile and more lazy. The Airpods use standard bluetooth for everything that bluetooth has. The stuff that doesn't work on non apple platforms is the configuration, changing what the squeeze actions do and loading firmware updates.

There is no way to do this with standard bluetooth, you have to have a custom app for it. Apple just didn't build a custom app for other platforms but there is no reason they would care about someone else investing the resources in to building it. They still win because you bought the airpods and someone else spent the resources on making the app.

0. For the love of the game

1. Additional freedom for used purchasers, gifted purchasers, purchasers from a past era, whatever