I once had to integrate a third party tracking framework to an Android app. The PM wanted to track everything, even the apps that were installed on the device. Google immediately took our app down because of that.

And preventing this from happening with SSL pinning is not a barrier for Google or Apple because they can easily bypass that.

Since they have the means to inspect the traffic at scale then they should be able to filter out apps that are violating your privacy.

While I have zero love for any given hyper capitalistic business like Apple, Android is not any better on the whole in this space, and in some ways measurably worse (especially when you take into account what devices actually hold the largest market share)

This is true, but Apple touts how much better they are about Privacy, and charges a premium for it. Google is more up front that they make little money on the initial sale, and are dependent on advertising to make money.

> Privacy is built in from the beginning. Our products and features include innovative privacy technologies and techniques designed to minimize how much of your data we — or anyone else — can access

https://www.apple.com/privacy/features/

Apple sells privacy, brags about privacy - yet Privacy is abused in from the beginning in the store apps.

And the lesson is - you can't buy privacy but you can sell it.

No. Apple charged a premium well before they started talking about privacy.