I… had not thought of the situation from that perspective.
On the one hand, I want to look at this and say ‘conspiracy theory’… but on the other hand I could potentially see this being possible.
On the third hand, when in doubt, apply Hanlon’s Razor: don’t attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Linux Mint reporting in. I’ve been running it on all my machines for… over 6 years now, not sure how much longer than 6 though. Did not look back, I can do everything I want without issue.
I, too, enjoy having an OS that doesn’t fsck with me.