I can put that more charitably by thinking about it in terms of informed consent, ie does the user understand the risks involved. But if you're concerned that someone following a video tutorial or seeking out a friend has not consented, then I think your standard for what constitutes consent is ludicrously high!
And if it turns out that lots of people are consenting to something, that isn't a failure of design. You asked your users a question, and they gave you an answer.
More secure by what metric? I would expect that by definition, they are equally secure until the security settings are disabled. If the user disabled a security setting, of course that system is less secure, that's a choice the user made in exchange for some other benefit.
> (most) users value security over absolute computing freedom.
How do you know this? I think that if they're disabling security settings, it's probably because they value freedom/capabilities over security. And you may think this is the wrong choice, but it's theirs to make.