[basisword]

>> I feel like that's the kind of thing it's easy to not recognise as a terrible idea until after it's done

I don't even think it was a terrible idea. It was just one of those things lots of people irrationally hooked on to. "We're giving you all a free record". Enough people made it 'bad' because people like to make a fuss. The only real issue with it was the inability to remove it which they later rectified.

[mort96]

Eh no, sorry. The practical result is that a ton of people who have absolutely no interest in U2 has Songs of Innocence start playing when they don't want it. It plays when people turn on their cars. It plays when people connect to Bluetooth speakers. It plays when people want to resume Spotify playback but Spotify got killed in the background. It plays when people want to resume the YouTube video they were watching but macOS lost track of what's paused. It's a truly terrible idea in practice.

Apple didn't really rectify the inability to remove it. They released a removal tool, but that tool is long defunct. The only way to remove it these days is to contact Apple Support, from what I can tell on the web.