>> There is no cabal of evil tech that pushes this

There is. It is called Microsoft. The recent dustup over VLC being the latest battleground between the darkness and the light. My experience of the front: work wants me to install MSTeams on my personal phone... which runs GrapheneOS.

(lol, windows wants to spellcheck MSTeams into "MS Teams" but refuses to acknowledge GrapheneOS. Another MS microaggression.)