To be fair, they are damned if they do and dammed if they don’t. Don’t include auto updates, you’re in the news and people are upset that they have been hacked or catching viruses.
For the average user, auto updates are a blessing.
Nearly every system I’ve used does still give you control by allowing you to opt out.
You can livepatch your OS without auto-deploying the next major version of iOS. That's what, I dunno, security focused OSes do when a critical vulnerability is discovered.
In the beginning ios didn't - they even connected to the wifi automatically, to download the huge updates. I think Windows also has announced forced updates. That extent of forced updates is just abusive.
For the average user, auto updates are a blessing.
Nearly every system I’ve used does still give you control by allowing you to opt out.