I agree with you, but it's not about spouses or elderly parents. I have been designing chips and custom hardware for multiple decades. Guiding and/or implementing custom firmware for a similar time span. I am highly technical and I still want a phone with a tightly controlled ecosystem that is robust and it isn't sending all my personal data back to the mother ship for them to monetize. The App Store is one of the best features of the iPhone. There are a lot of bad players doing all sorts of things. I like having Apple guarding the gates.

The thing is, I think I am similar to the vast majority of Apple's customers in my preference for the App Store. Finding and installing software was a hassle before the store. The simplicity of app management with the store has been a revelation. Some will say that my preference shouldn't keep others from getting side-loading and I get that, but I imagine creating that installation path will also create a new exploit path. I don't think most customers will be happy if Apple has to allow side-loading and that leads to weaker security. Hopefully I'm wrong and weakened security can be avoided, but I'm skeptical for now.

A large segment of the HN readership doesn't seem to understand that many of their desires with respect to a device put them in a small minority of Apple's customers. If Apple is satisfying the vast majority of customers, why is that a bad thing?