The impact on user freedom is negligible.

But even if we decide this particular situation is in fact locking down, what I said is still true. Locking down is a subset of removing options, not synonymous with it.

Apple has been practicing incrementalism. Each small step by itself doesn't seem very significant. But the slow march continues, and the pieces add up. Current people with technical ability may be able to modify their behavior to work around it, but the technical bar has been raise slightly-- people without technical ability have one more small speedbump.

If you're right and Apple stops here, then sure, no big deal, and I'd be happy to be wrong. This isn't the hill I'd die on for the issue. It's the trend I don't like. If a few years go by without Apple locking down the OS further, I'd be okay with the status quo. Looking at the trend of the past few years though, it seems like Apple is slowly taking MacOS towards the iOS model.

If this was a typical increment in Apple's incrementalism, then even the sum total would be something you could ignore for a hundred years.