I've been able to plug in any two buttoned mouse for the 22 years since I first used a Mac. Their own trackpads and mice allow two finger tap to be enabled for advanced users (but on a laptop one finger can press ctrl while the other taps). I don't know how far back you're talking about when you imply no support for them.
But I remember noticing years ago a large room of tech professionals and 100% of the Windows users had mice plugged into their laptops, and zero percent of Mac users did. It was a failure of the Windows ecosystem that people needed those imho.
> I don't know how far back you're talking about when you imply no support for them.
It's not 'no support', it was an insane default. For all the talk of 'easy to use', there's a reason context menus exist. You can't just cram every context-specific interaction into an omnibar or a leftclick. Non-trivial software is complicated. Adding that friction to its use does nobody any favours.
Yes, in the decades since... Trackpads have gotten a lot better, but at the time Jobs was pushing for that nonsense, they simply weren't good enough. (And didn't exist at all for non-laptop computers.)
Defaults are for the normal consumer, non trivial software is not, I think? What's something you think must only exist in a context menu?
Note that in non-trivial or professional software it's typical to have a hand on the keyboard, because not even a second mouse button is enough. Hold 'q' while dragging to adjust exposure in capture one, etc. Or they have dedicated input hardware like mixing consoles. Or they plug in a speciality mouse.
This is only because IMHO, the trackpad is something you can "live with" (edit: on a Mac) temporarily. It beats carrying a mouse around. Having said that, I know a UX designer that only uses the trackpad. Boggles my mind.
Just because the feature is available somewhere else in the UI doesn't mean that the shortcut for it must be a two-handed one.