Handling servers and embedded Linux is much different than setting up an iPad, which is a consumer device...
First, because we could also have server-class devices that are quite easy to setup (similarly to how consumer PCs where much harder to setup in the past and are much easier now). We just come to not expect it, but that doesn't make consumer vs server something that inherently justifies "more difficult to setup".
Second, because the "spend 1 hour to add an account on an iPad (and during an outtage at that)" is far from the common behavior of the iPad, to be representative of some inherent issue with it.
So, it's more like "I had a quite unlikely and unrepresentative experience with an iPad and it put me off from such devices, whereas I tolerate the same far more often from servers and desktop machines and don't think twice about it".
Which, put that way, is much less potent than "that damned iPad and Apple's walled garden wasted 1 hour of my life, I'm never going back to those", isn't it?
From the perspective of an individual, whether or not your experience is representative of most people's experience of a similar thing only has moderate relevance. Most people find serial killers to be normal, or even charming. This is of little comfort to victims.
Sounds just like "I am a Mac user installing Linux on a cheap best buy laptop and whoa it doesn't work as well supporting a pretty obscure config that macOS would never even boot on, but am going to compare to my top of the line MBP and complain".