I don't think that many people truly are choosing between an iPhone or Android phone based off the quality of the camera. I also don't think that Android phones are universally worse from an engineering perspective. Remember it wasn't that long ago that Apple designed a phone that lost reception if you held it the way that many people instinctually hold their phones. I think the differences between Apple and its competitors mostly comes down to different priorities and motivations. A product from a company that is committed to vertical integration is going to be vastly different than a product from a company that only exists to get you to use software which only exists to sell you ads.

Also Netflix didn't have a head start because of the quality of their streaming tech. They had a head start because of the business decision to invest in streaming before their competitors did. That early decision led to the quality of their library which is what attracted customers which is what allowed them to reinvest in their tech.

There are plenty of other examples. Twitter and Reddit come to mind as companies that had seemingly awful technology that would regularly fail. They succeeded through that. Companies like Facebook have certainly produced some good tech, but almost all of that has come after the company became a success. That is similar to Microsoft who got their big start selling someone else's tech.