alt Hacker NewsThe problem is that I'm only theoretically harmed by things that unexpectedly succeed in phoning home, while I'm absolutely harmed by things failing to phone home when I need them to do so.
Dollars I have lost due to things phoning home against my expectations: Close to zero -- if not literally zero. (And close to zero time spent managing that.)
Dollars I have lost due to things failing to phone home when I want them to do so: More than zero. (And hours and hours of time spent trying to make them work more reliably.)
If you really want to get into a game of theoretically vs practically, for most users: they're only theoretically harmed by not being able to disable background activity, because all they're doing is texting (worst case, there's GCM which is whitelisted) and watching tiktok. Meanwhile they're practically harmed because the one-of-a-dozen e-commerce app has some misbehaving background service that's trying to send telemetry 24/7. People also have terrible battery discipline, and if you're out and about a dead phone has actual costs (eg. having to rent a power bank, or having to take a cab rather than uber).
None of this invalidates your use case, but given the rarity of your use case compared to the more common use case, I hope you understand why companies are implementing it not purely out of "spite".