Apple’s pejorative comments about MDM make sense if you consider Apple thinks MDM an necessary evil that they must provide for their phones to be viable in the enterprise.

I think the prospect of MDM establishing itself as a necessary evil for consumer use-cases is such affront to their thoughts about individual data privacy rights that they would rather trash MDM than risk that possibility.

If you want to get a sense of how Apple thinks parental management of a device and enterprise management of a device in a corporate setting differ, all you need to do is compare the experiences and features. MDM is like a nuke compared to screentime and parental controls.

As a final note Apple refuses to even provide the management server portion of MDM, another clear signal that of their split feelings on the matter.