As a long-time GoPro owner who recently added an Insta360 X5 to his collection, I can't really see any meaningful difference in software horribleness. They are both really really bad, with ads everywhere constantly pushing subscriptions to their cloud services.
At least with the normal cameras the software can be entirely ignored, I can take video from my Hero5 straight in to any ordinary NLE and go from there, but the 360 camera requires their software to convert from the native format to anything usable, even if I'm keeping it as 360 footage.
The worst part IMO for both is that they prioritize mobile apps over their PC software so if you want to edit on a computer like a normal reasonable person you lose features compared to idiotically doing things on a phone.
This was my main gripe, but also:
* Image stabilization (Hypersmooth Pro/ReelSteady) as a subscription feature.
* Auto-rotate and orientation lock don't work in streaming mode. (I reported this as a bug on the Hero7, was told it was being looked at, still a problem on the Hero10 when I stopped paying attention)
For what it's worth, DJI does offer desktop software for their Osmo action cams. They also have a direct NAS/cloud storage upload option from the camera, as well as allowing normal transfer over USB or by pulling the SD card.
This is my biggest issue as well. It's actually the one "real" thing I use the iPad for. It still gets the mobile app interface whilst being on a bigger screen and being almost usable.
On top of that, when GoPro first launched mobile phones generally did not have cameras capable of producing production-quality images, and especially video. 20 years later, the game is much different.
Remember the Flip video camera that was all the rage for like 2 years and then just disappeared when cellphones could shoot video? GoPro is like a rugged Flip, so it took a little longer for the world to catch up to them, but now there are lots of options, and a "cheap" sports camera that is 1/4 the price of a GoPro is good enough, even if it only lasts 1/2 as long.
Giving billions of free money to shareholders of Intel & friends is going to do absolutely nothing to change the tide. Want domestic manufacturing? Invest in building a JLCPCB alternative: automated to the fullest extent possible in order to save fractions of a cent on ops, then operated on a razor-thin margin but making up for it in volume.
Chinese people aren't the lazy dumb manual workers we have long pretended they are. After we have freely given them all of our engineering knowledge with outsourcing, they are now beating us on the free market. If we don't internalize this, stop with the silly competition-destroying tariffs, and try to compete again, we are doomed to slide into irrelevancy - and we've got only ourselves to blame.
The same thing is happening to BMW, Toyota,Mercedes...
They are just not as good. I bought GoPro10 ~5 years ago and it constantly overheats. Very unreliable. It was the first and last time I bought GoPro.