I believe people in HN also remember the days before we had MMUs.
And I'm sure everyone remembers ransomware.
No one is saying OS shouldn't have security measures, permissions/entitlements and app sandboxing, user land, etc.
I still don't understand why my desktop/laptop is allowed to be 'owned' by me. but my iPhone is a closed-gardened where I'm just a guest in a device I own. and that's nearly what Google is now doing.