You're missing the point entirely. The idea of a "freedom to install" is incidental to what happened in the market which is that Apple made a platform that people felt secure and happy in. Consumers Apple's product to the extent that Apple became a dominant force in the market.

That's the house they chose to live in. It's a house in which no knives existed. Now you're saying "let them put knives in, how dare you restrict them from having a knife!" whereas most consumers are saying "I like this house, wow living here feels great.". It's not a knife issue. You're trying to make it a knife issue.

The success of the iPhone was never obvious from day one. To attribute Apple's success to monopolistic behavior and consumer oppression, rather consumer behavior and expression, is just denying reality.

> It's still wild to me how they managed to get people to argue against the freedom to install whatever they want on their device.

And it is the "they" that I'm arguing against, not the rest of it.