I think it's mostly unfounded, but companies do avoid this for reasons other than wanting to directly control their users. I worked for a company where everything was Apache 2, BSD 3-clause, MIT, or similarly licensed. Since we distributed source regardless, this means less control over the users, even though it means they have the freedom to not pass it on to their own users. Our lawyers absolutely lost their shit at the suggestion that we include the GPL. Because a bunch of our customers absolutely lost their shit at the slightest hint of GPL, because they don't want to be sued for unintended virality.