Google isn't great by any means, but at least Android OS (maintained by Google) lets you sideload apps all you want. So my TV running Android lets me sideload SmartTube so I can watch YouTube without ads.
The root problem here isn't Google, it's Apple. Of course Google wants you to view their horrible ads, and isn't going to make it extremely easy to avoid this (which is why SmartTube isn't available on the Play Store and must be sideloaded), but they're not the ones with the super-locked-down platform. If you want some kind of freedom, stop buying Apple junk.
In my opinion _both_ platforms are awful, for different reasons. Google spies on everything you do, and Apple has a smaller amount of spying but a very high-walled garden.
I've made the choice to hold my nose and continue to use an Apple device for my mobile phone, but I purposely do as little as I can on it and opt to use a general purpose computer as much as possible, where I can run whatever software I want. I have an iPad, but it's collecting dust in the corner, because anything I could do on it can be done better on my Thinkpad running linux or on my Macbook.
The root problem here isn't Google, it's Apple. Of course Google wants you to view their horrible ads, and isn't going to make it extremely easy to avoid this (which is why SmartTube isn't available on the Play Store and must be sideloaded), but they're not the ones with the super-locked-down platform. If you want some kind of freedom, stop buying Apple junk.