> anyone at this point advocating for any other phone/os/service out there besides apple is really going out of their way to swim up river.

Did Apple ever implement the ability to run software without first phoning home and asking for permission? The last time I checked they had not followed through on their promise to do so.

https://www.howtogeek.com/701176/does-apple-track-every-mac-...

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/06/16/apple-reneged-on-ocsp-pri...