I don't think people are upset that Google could change settings or software, they're upset at the lack of technical controls that allowed Google to accidentall

I don't think people are upset that Google could change settings or software, they're upset at the lack of technical controls that allowed Google to accidentally push out settings changes to user's devices, and the lack of security measures in the OS that allows that accidental settings change to be done without any sort of notification to the user. It'd be like your bank accidentally moving your money to another account; you know that they need the ability to transfer funds as part of their job, but they should have better internal processes that prevents them from accidentally doing it.