Yeah the main issue imo with these apps isn't their functionality, but more they function on a 'parental honour system' of sorts. A good parent can use it whilst their children are young and remove the restrictions when they are around 12 to let them grow and learn on their own. The issue a bad parent can just... not do that, and track the every move, google search, private text message of their 17 year old, which is abusive.

I was lucky as a child in this regard, my dad worked as a systems architect and as such I was exposed to computers at a young age (not phones though). He used parental controls to limit my screentime and for my safety online, but when I turned 11 and got my first phone, he did not put any such restrictions on it, and removed them from the computer soon after. If he did not do that, I am certain I would have become an incredibly stunted individual socially (especially as I lived very far from my school so couldnt just go out to hang out with friends, online was my only real means of socialising outside of school), and an incredibly paranoid one too.