Google (before the sell-off) promoted a morality in 'don't be evil' that was a stark contrast to other tech firms. The adverts they carried were minimal. Their "free" stuff was top of the line, better than people were getting from paid services.

Apple (under Jobs) sold themselves as counter-culture, they used popstars (unironically), and design, to sell the idea that if you were your own person, or followed fashion, then you bought Apple.

I think the goodwill from those days still provides the foundations of their cultural position now. Although they chip away at those foundations.

OpenAI looked like it could follow Google's early model, until it didn't.

They built products people like, and specially Apple has good reputation for building reliable, long-lasting and easy to use stuff for most people, leading to a heavy user adoption. But heavy user adoption without the proper regulation and company ethics leads to, well, monopolistic practices.

i mean Apple kind of used that position for building a good reputation. their whole thing is/was how secure their devices were and how they had human verification on all apps that went through the app store with a clear intents file (a file the describes exactly WHY an app needs permission for bluetooth/etc), and a secure enclave that prevented even the FBI from getting in (while apple refused to give them a backdoor). Hackers and tinkerers will find a lot of these measures to be an annoyance and authoritative control, but a lot of people just want their phone to a product, not the user.