It appears to be a quirk of human nature. In fact, it's so prevalent that it has a name in Latin: Tu Quoque.

because thats the way the whole industry acts now and suddenly microsoft aligns with it and its bad. I need an apple account to activate an iphone, and it bugs me about cloud photos and backups no matter what. I need a google account to activate a pixel phone, and it bundles google photos and tries to sell me cloud storage too.

everybody is doing it. Its the norm now. Either make it so nobody can do it or criticize everyone.

because its now the industry norm, by the biggest players.

I guess whataboutism is a rhetorical technique approximately as old as verbal communication.