> "A dedicated device that is famously easy to use, still loses out to more complicated devices that do everything."

There's something of a gadget axiom in there. Casual users are, by definition, not interested in the fiddly bits. Thus they value the results over the process, the tools or the craft. Thus they are most-willing to abandon a dedicated device for a good-enough multifunction, if for no other reason than to cut down on extra gadgets for endeavors they don't have a deep interest in.

I think you might be off on 'complicated' though. Note that Flip didn't have any real competition until the latest versions of modern pocket-OSes brought (comparative) simplicity to video. 'Feature-phones' were packing video capabilities for pretty much all of Flip's rise to prominence.

It's the two-tap "upload to youtube/vimeo/facebook" that did them in.