That may be a better analogy than you intend. The problem with cars is that everyone suffers the consequences of your driving. In fact, you may have the least exposure to the carbon monoxide, pollution, or even accident risk. Pedestrians, cyclists, property owners, and other drivers are all at risk of your driving.

For that reason, societies tightly regulate car ownership and driving. More so than phones: I don’t need a license to use a phone, nor do I have to register my ownership or have it regularly inspected.

But technology these days has this same characteristic: Others bear the costs of your decision. Every device connected to the internet is a DDOS vector.

I don’t want you deciding whether to keep your device up to date with the latest security patches, because if you (and a few million others) don’t, GitHub is down for me.

So, are you doing the responsible thing and not using a laptop, or any device that's vulnerable, like a router?

Bear in mind that the vast vast majority of apple's customers have 0 interest in sideloading apps- if you're apple it makes a great deal of sense to trade off security for the masses against a few power users who can't sideload apps occasionally here and there

A compromise doesn't affect you, it affects Apple and the app developers. iOS has the best apps because it has people buying them instead of everyone and his brother pirating.

Anyway, if you don't want to deal with how an iPhone works, how about buying a different phone.