That infamous quote has gotten rather a lot of visibility within the past few years, AFAIK it gained popularity shortly after Secure Boot and Cory Doctor's articles that started the term "war on general-purpose computing" became well known, over 7 years ago:

https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

A few more relevant quotes:

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." -Gandhi

"Insecurity is freedom." -(various)

Good thing you can still buy and use other phones that will run any malware you wish. It’s not a question of freedom.

Given the number of things that only run on an iPhone, I’m inclined to disagree.

Such as?