My comment was from the point of view of the security provider. The security provider receives your freedom and gives you security. Of course, from the point of view of the freedom holder, there are no guarantees that the security provider will fulfill the promise in the sense that you expect (i.e. that they won't violate it themselves) but you can generally expect that they will at the very least reduce the number of individuals threatening your security from private individuals plus the state to just the state.
Your full and complete security can't never be guaranteed unless you hand over your full and complete freedom. Sure, today there are many scans in the App Store but today there are also way more mobile users than there were in the early days and phones have gone from digital toys to holders of digital personal life.
If you want to see what a world where you keep most of your freedom looks like, try using the Google App Store with an average phone (see: phone with no security updates since 2021) and see how many scams you get. Guaranteed way more than Apple. Like an order of magnitude more.
Let me give you another analogy. You are a villager in a corrupt country besieged by out of control armed gangs taking control of areas of the country. Areas such as yours. You got a corrupt country making your life hell and gangs making your life hell. Now you have a choice to move to another country where there is corruption but no gangs. That other country is Apple, Singapore and basically any South American country got its gangs under control. There are millions of people that literally want to get an Apple, get into Singapore and get into this kind of SA country. Sure, a world where higher powers don't abuse their power is nice but that world does not exist in our reality. You choose the lesser evil. That's what Apple is doing here.