I've felt the opposite for more than a decade. On Linux, it's relatively easy for me to choose a set of applications which all use the same UI toolkit. Additionally, the web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function. Linux was the first OS with an "app store" (the package manager). CLI utilities available tend to be the full fat versions with all the useful options, rather than minimalist versions there to satisfy posix compatibility. I could go on.
On Linux there is variety and choice, which some folks dislike.
But on the Mac I get whatever Apple gives me, and that is often subject to the limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets.
> The web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function.
Should Emacs and Vim both be called "Editor" then?
To me, this is actually a great example of the problems with Linux as a community, that GUI applications seem to just be treated as placeholders (e.g., all word processors are the same?), but then its inconsistent by celebrating the unique differences between editors like Vim and Emacs. Photoshop, Excel, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro are, in my opinion, crown jewels of what we've accomplished in computing, and by extension some of the greatest creations of the human race, democratizing tasks that in some cases would have cost millions of dollars before (e.g., a recording studio in your home). Relegating these to generic names like "spreadsheet", makes them sound interchangeable, when in my opinion they're each individual creations of great beauty that should wear their names with pride. They've helped improve the trajectory of the human race by facilitating many individuals to perform actions they never would have had the resources to do otherwise.
I don't mind corporate branding in general, e.g., if a company makes a great app, why shouldn't they be allow to put their name on it (in an appropriate place)? (And I do think great apps should have more memorable names than "Photo Editor".) (And I'm not sure I get the connection branding has to "Freedom of Choice"?)
But, to your point, even I'll admit the fact that the Photoshop is called "Adobe Photoshop 2025" is annoying lol.
Where it's mattered for me has been in supporting family like my Grandmother. She's passed now, but ran Linux on her desktop for web and email for about a decade. I set it up for her after her Windows install got a nasty virus. I appreciated that she didn't have to learn that "Safari" meant "the internet" and so on. She didn't even have to know she was using Linux. Just how to get to the web. And Linux desktops made that a little easier for her, and less work for me.
Got it, yeah that's a very valid use case for a setup like that. But I'm not sure there's much that's OS dependent to support a setup like that? E.g., I could do the same on macOS (e.g., on macOS a wrapper `Web Browser.app` could be made that launches Safari in the Dock [with the Safari icon, or any other, if that's desirable]).
I'm a Linux fan and I like that Apple isn't rubber-stamping the two new web APIs a week that Google comes up with. There are hundreds of them, most of them quite small fortunately.
On Linux there is variety and choice, which some folks dislike.
But on the Mac I get whatever Apple gives me, and that is often subject to the limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets.