It's really not a generational thing. Every generation has their nerds and they always are just a tiny minority.
The late Gen X/early millennials may have been an outlier because they were forced to learn to get anything working but also from those years most don't care about tech.
Apple does have a significant market share of 25-30% in Europe. Just because they avoided having to open iMessage (for now) because everyone in Europe uses WhatsApp, doesn't mean other Apple services are safe from regulation.
But I'm with you - it's more likely about (not so) privacy.
I totally wouldn't be surprised if there originally were people being like "So what's this so-called 'cupboard' supposed to solve? Why isn't a regular shelf good enough for you?"
What the fuck are you talking about? My ISP supports IPv6 just fine, but following my VPN's advice I disable it (on certain devices at least) for privacy concerns. And it makes exactly zero difference in functionality.