You don't have to use HAOS. You absolutely can just run HA in a container.

Can't even play Doom on it, those bastards

You're right, you have no idea what it is.

You're "locked in" because it is super versatile and accepts a ultra wide variety of devices and plug-ins that can do pretty much anything one can imagine as a tiny or big project for their home.

Or does it sound better if you "lock in" with Amazon and buy only what they produce, stay in their environment and do only things they designed you can do with the devices they sell?

Essentially you are (or were didn’t have time lately to check) locked to home assistant os.

Since when? I use it frequently in my house. The possibilities are damn near endless, you have the freedom to do damn near whatever the fuck you want with it.

The problems come with shitty vendor integrations that intentionally gimp functionality when the devices aren't used in whatever "official" app the vendor ships. That's not HA's fault, tha's squarely on the vendor for doing shit in bad faith to steer low-IQ customers (like you, apparently) to the "official" app.

Lock in is more about open standards and protocols then it is about an opinionated implementation. Yes there is not simple "export to whatever" and an alternative service that dies an "import from home assistant"

But you cannot blame a service for not having any valid alternative or other options.

Its either 20 different vendor logins and apps or home assistant.

That's not what lock-in typically means.

As others said, not lock in. But they certainly make some very questionable UX decisions. I wish there was a good replacement, but there isn't, at least none that I am aware of.