I don’t entirely know. It’s not something that especially bothers me.

I will say that I think the forced linking has encouraged other unpleasant behavior like the profile folder hijacking to OneDrive. I rather like having this stuff in OneDrive. I do not like that it is pushed so aggressively. “We moved all your stuff to OneDrive. You need to subscribe so we don’t delete it.” This feels hostile. So some of the distaste with logins tied to the cloud is probably more about the surrounding ecosystem.

An Apple account also isn't required on an iPhone. They certainly encourage you create or link one on device setup, but it's not required to use the phone. Though one IS required to download apps, so you could argue it functionally is required.

Because I get benefits from it. With Apple I get a way of managing my devices, seeing location, remote erase, sharing services with family, storage, all integrated in a way that is there if I need it, out of my sight if I don’t.

What benefits am I getting from a Windows account? Syncing my profile picture? OneDrive is a mess I rather not have, is never happy.

How would the answer to this question illuminate your understanding? People using windows at their job also don't care. "Caring" does not need to be consistent across a group of people.