Comment by ulrikrasmussen

They're not conflating them, they are pointing out that the closedness of the system and the control it gives Apple will be a useful tool to authoritarians who can force Apple to exert their power in certain ways.

Everyone who is not a public service is just "making a product", but when your product is actually half of all endpoints for digital services and communication and you insist on not handing control to the users, then you effectively control half the infrastructure.