People wanted to believe they were incapable of considering or even conceiving of such a thing, so anti-thetical to the narrative they built sparring with some US law enforcement agencies...

And by "listened" you mean "postponed until people forgot", right?

The problem is that Apple considered it at all. They could have easily not listened and then we'd be stuck with no alternative. We know these things happen in secret, the fact they even suggested it publicly means that internally at least part of their leadership thinks it is ok.