For the vast majority of people, protecting them from their own lack of willingness to educate themselves about data security and malware (a nontrivial time investment, let me tell you, having done it myself), is a feature, not a bug.

It's not that they're paying more for less; it's that they're paying more for a curated less. For the vast majority of Apple's customers, this works out great (provided they aren't ever going to engage in an antigovernment protest).

Please don't get it twisted. What Apple does has value to many people; it's not as black-and-white as you seem to make it out to be.