Apple defenders keep approaching these conversations like, "okay, you think you want to actually own your phone, but have you considered that sideloading would be just like <insert other awesome thing>?"

Nobody likes the pre-bundled garbage smart TV system; TVs where you can install arbitrary apps and use the same remote to operate them would be a better experience. As TVs have gotten more universal standards and APIs that any device can hook into, they've gotten better. We're all glad that TVs have arbitrary HDMI in, we like being able to use any game console with our TVs without needing to care about whether the console manufacturer has an agreement with the TV manufacturer, we don't like when we get a TV home and figure out it doesn't work with a service we already own.

"Apple is like those 'smart' TVs you buy where you get home and discover that for some bullcrap reason Youtube doesn't work and your home assistant can't control the volume" -- may not be the strong defense of Apple you think it is?

Do the people making these comparisons not understand that the comparisons all sound really good? It's like, "do you expect to be able to install any app on a console? Do you expect your smart phone hub to be able to work with any smart device? Or what, you buy an e-reader and expect to be able to just put any book on it?"

Yes, I do. I don't know, don't threaten me with a good time.

At least the security arguments make some sense, even an argument that Apple has some special right to profit off of "access to the users" is more defendable. But I feel sometimes like Apple apologists are living in an alternate world where they think that if Microsoft launched a console that could play both Xbox and PS5 games that consumers would all be saying, "we don't want that, that feature makes the Xbox worse."

A TV is made for watching what I want. A smartphone is for running the apps I want.