It's a large amount, even for Apple, but they would survive losing that. Besides that, they are even taunting Google by putting DuckDuckGo in their marketing copy:

https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur-preview/

They also started a partnership with them in 2019:

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-maps-gooses-duckduckgo-in-se...

I think they are slowly preparing to loosen that tie.

I hear this line about their business model all the time, however it is bullshit. Given the opportunity all companies will take the money.

I agree. Apple's incentives are just temporarily aligned with customer's privacy. Their margins on hardware, services, etc. are so large that they can afford to make privacy a differentiator. If they are not in that comfortable position anymore, they would monetize the vast user data trove.

But while this is the status quo, I am happy to use an iPhone for privacy.