>but imagine how insanely negatively received it would be if apt upgrade

So what already happens when you ssh into an Ubuntu server to run apt upgrade to manually update it. It turns out people don't care that much.

I think they do care. In the gaming community, Ubuntu has gone from about 40% to 10% marketshare since 2018.

https://youtu.be/Pwt216nn0zE

Now, you might say this is because of the influence of SteamOS, but I think you’d be hard pressed to argue that Ubuntu has been getting more popular overall.

Linux users have a choice while iOS and Android users essentially don’t.