Of course this might change in future. And Mac OS has other popups where there is no “skip” and only “remind me later”.
I don’t use it often, but occasionally use the proofread option. Other than that, it stays out of my way.
Nobody can predict what Apple will do tomorrow, but as of today, they aren't really pushing Siri/Apple intelligence really hard particularly after initial setup. None of most of the above for example.
I don't know what happens with Home Edition, but I though the pushback was mainly from Insider Preview?
You can't even select a cell on notepad without a freaking copilot button pooping up every single time. Same on word, that's maddening !
You could argue that windows isn't Microsoft copilot 365, but then, why do people even use windows ? It's always because of the office, my bad, copilot 365 suite.
I actually trust the Apple Intelligence, when off, doesn't exfiltrate my data.
I too would not want any unprompted access to my files.
At the end of the day this issue is that we don't trust the OS and we cannot easily validate how it is designed to behave.
Baked into the OS implies that it's integral to its operation in a way that the two are fundamentally inseparable. Having a global off switch implies that's not true.
There are other irritating baked in aspects of the newest macos and other recent versions that are arguably less avoidable, like Tahoe's entire UI design, or the Settings app.
Maybe it's doing stuff that doesn't rise to my level of attention, but it isn't actively annoying me.