> Why can't reasonable people disagree here?

They can, but framing this as a mere disagreement is disingenuous: One approach might slightly inconvenience someone, while the other (as was taken here) inflicts irreparable damage.

> Fundamentally, always-online, home-phoning features are the norm,

No. Although common on certain platforms, they are not a fundamental norm in software, nor should they be.

In particular, we're talking about Debian here.