I don't mind corporate branding in general, e.g., if a company makes a great app, why shouldn't they be allow to put their name on it (in an appropriate place)? (And I do think great apps should have more memorable names than "Photo Editor".) (And I'm not sure I get the connection branding has to "Freedom of Choice"?)
But, to your point, even I'll admit the fact that the Photoshop is called "Adobe Photoshop 2025" is annoying lol.
Where it's mattered for me has been in supporting family like my Grandmother. She's passed now, but ran Linux on her desktop for web and email for about a decade. I set it up for her after her Windows install got a nasty virus. I appreciated that she didn't have to learn that "Safari" meant "the internet" and so on. She didn't even have to know she was using Linux. Just how to get to the web. And Linux desktops made that a little easier for her, and less work for me.
Got it, yeah that's a very valid use case for a setup like that. But I'm not sure there's much that's OS dependent to support a setup like that? E.g., I could do the same on macOS (e.g., on macOS a wrapper `Web Browser.app` could be made that launches Safari in the Dock [with the Safari icon, or any other, if that's desirable]).
But, to your point, even I'll admit the fact that the Photoshop is called "Adobe Photoshop 2025" is annoying lol.