This is a feature that has been among the most loved aspects of its main competitor for more than a decade.
Somehow, Microsoft managed to make the same feature sound and feel and be creepy.
People who wanted that kind of treatment and walled garden already moved to apple's ecosystem, and people who do not want this stayed with windows.
Now more and more of my non-technical friends are moving towards linux because microsoft is pushing them away.
Again, for the Nth time, you can run any software you like on a Mac. You can do anything you want. App store? Of course. Direct vendor download? You bet. Build from source? No problem.
Further, this line is out of place here because Microsoft is FAR more invasive about pushing cloud-first storage than Apple has ever been. No app on my Mac default to saving to iCloud. NONE.
Yes, the Mac defaults to a stricter policy than most HN readers would want. Mass market computers SHOULD. That they don't is a reason we have so much malware on the Aunt Millie PCs of the world.
HN readers are more technical. We want to do what we want to do, but we have to understand that what WE want isn't what's right for the average user. As long as a platform gives us a path to download a random utility from a buddy's site or whatever, it's fine.
It's very, very easy to set a Mac to run whatever you want. Nothing is hidden about it. Is it different than it was under Sonoma? Yes, but the changes are well documented and there are countless articles online, including at Apple, that explain the trivial steps required.