The pushing and pulling was there all along:
The play/pause media key automatically starting the Music app, suggestions defaulting to include content from paid services (hey that movie is available on Apple TV!), maps links only working with Apple Maps, searching for selected text opens Safari and disregards your primary browser, permanently enabled share menu options for iCloud and Airdrop.
Privacy settings increasingly spread out and opaquely named. No more central unique identifier reset button, but individual ones for each app placed in different submenus. Completely disabling Siri has become some sort of Easter egg hunt. Not that it'll actually stop the data outflow, though.
Aggressive surfacing of ecosystem capabilities such as proximity unlock by nearby Apple watch, wake on bluetooth or network, etc. These features were previously configurable through the GUI, but those conveniences have been removed and the features are enabled by default.
Local configuration profiles (a free, easy, local, and accessible way to configure your system) are being slowly phased out in favour of third party remote Mobile Device Management services such as Jamf or, of course, the one Apple launched not too long ago.
These new advertisements are so prominent and the implementation so obviously bad, that I'm almost suspecting them to be merely a distraction from the much more insidious tricks they've been pulling in the background.
> The play/pause media key automatically starting the Music app
$ sudo chmod -x /Applications/Music.app
This was a common complaint I have heard from those coming from Windows/Android and even Linux... It's unix.
Also, the play/pause key works with other apps. Other default apps can be set.
Many other valid points in this article and thread, but I don't know why people expect the default behavior of the play button to behave any differently when no media is playing. Music.app may have an upsell, but it's still a place to organize your own personal music library. No cloud or SaaS required.
Play/pause always starts the Music app, regardless of your preferred music player. It's annoying for those of us who don't use the built-in Music app at all.
Your command doesn't work. The music app actually lives at `/System/Applications/Music.app`. And since Monterey, I think, even sudo won't let you modify data in that folder because of macOS's built-in protections that cannot be disabled:
chmod: Unable to change file mode on /System/Applications/Music.app: Read-only file system