Yep. And the incentive at Apple is to keep making people use more cloud and have them pay more for it so they can say they make more profit from the service division.
It's quite bad, because it's a rug pull that Apple did. Before all the cloud/service nonsense, what differentiated Apple from the rest was your ability to fully own and manage their devices easily without having to rely on some "forever" subscription.
If people wanted some cloud crap, they could have gone with Google or even Microsoft. But current Apple doesn't care, it cares more about money than a fundamental philosophy that sets them apart.
> what differentiated Apple from the rest was your ability to fully own and manage their devices easily without having to rely on some "forever" subscription.
I'm not sure that's ever been true of the iPhone. Apple's app store is the only way to install software, you're tied to their cloud from day 1. Its not a paid subscription that you're locked into, but they make sure everyone pays in some way.