With Phoenix, you weren’t actually opening a channel with an outside node.
Your channel(s) were between Phoenix’s central node and a “virtual node” for you.
Then they could open outbound channels to a bunch of other nodes. This simple aspect removes a lot of friction for the user.

But as nostr:npub1t0nyg64g5vwprva52wlcmt7fkdr07v5dr7s35raq9g0xgc0k4xcsedjgqv  alluded to, there is a lot of visibility and lack of privacy on Phoenix’s end. They can see everything going on.