Are you kidding me? You are not being "press ganged", when you try to play music the music player shipped with the OS is opened.
your point would carry more weight were it possible to switch the default music player
I'm not trying to play music. I'm not even logged into the Apple Music app.
I'm just trying to put my bluetooth earbud in my ear to make a Teams call, and 1/3 of the time I get an onboarding prompt to join Apple Music on my work computer. Can't turn it off.
Apple Music can not be uninstalled. That's pretty much "press ganged" in my book.