Apple is definitely not afraid to block otherwise widely available features behind flags or extra clicks. For example, Web Push is available on iOS only for "installed PWAs".

Specifically media support though, for which Apple has built their entire OS (both macOS and iOS) and app experience around having the best out of the box color experience for designers/aesthetics (e.g. bit depth, wide gamut, true tone type adjustments, hdr all widely adopted early for this reason). This is in contrast to your example of Web Push, which is the antithesis of their goals on how the OS should be used and what for.

The only reason Safari lacks HDR image support on macOS right now is it's their lowest priority platform for the feature. It's coming, it's supported on their other platforms, and it wasn't an unreviewed accident they've been working on it.