Agreed on the change of possession aspect but if I remember Mike Pereira correctly it is a two part process: loss and recover. I was referring to the loss aspect of that two-parter but can see how my post can seem otherwise.
But the thing is that the loss
doesn't matter except in the sense of the ball still being live but not under control by a player on the offense. Recovery is the only part of a fumble that actually has any effect on possession.
I thought about intent for kicks but discarded it as a supporting angle. Yes, the offense elects to kick but the relevant aspect is what generates a touchback which is punting or quick kicking the ball into the end zone. The kicker sent the ball out of the field of play into the scoring area by way of an intentional act. The kicker isn't rewarded for that. Even more to the point, a failed field goal is effectively a turnover at the spot of the kick.
???
You'll have to forgive me, but I don't see how this is relevant at all to whether or not the offense should be uniquely penalized in the end zone and nowhere else when it comes to fumbles out of bounds. The relevant aspect to what generates a touchback isn't "punting or quick kicking the ball into the end zone", it's "the ball cannot be played
from the endzone" which is where the receiving team recovers it. That's literally the entire reason touchbacks exist. The ball cannot be placed or snapped inside the endzone, so it has to go somewhere else.
But if a player fumbles out of bounds or out of the end zone unintentionally the argument is that a fundamental football mistake should be rewarded by returning the ball back to the spot of the mistake.I wrestled with this part for a while but I believe you are assuming that the offense gets a pass for making a mistake while close to scoring. It isn't about the defense.
I'm still waiting to hear why the enormity of the mistake should be magnified an infinite amount because the runner was six inches closer to the goal line than one who fumbled out of bounds at the one. The rules for what happen away from the endzone include this "reward". Straight out of the book:
"
A fumble that goes forward and out of bounds will return to the fumbling team at the spot of the fumble unless the ball goes out of bounds in the opponent’s end zone. In this case, it is a touchback."
Emphasis added.
Literally everywhere else the offense gets "rewarded" (I'm going to really disagree here, and say that it's definitely about the defense. They haven't earned a damn thing and shouldn't be 'rewarded' either). It's an asinine exception that does nothing but turn exciting plays into utterly unexciting and bitterly disappointing turnovers.
All it does is declare "never dive for the pylon" or "never try to extend the play into the endzone" which are some of the most spectacular and entertaining plays in the entire game. Any rule that not only discourages that kind of play, but can actually lose entire games (2017 count: three) is pretty firmly antithetical to an entertainment product.