IMO this is a false dichotomy. Epic and Spotify are not the size of Apple, but they're still giants compared to little indie developers.
I trust indie devs way more than any of the BigCos. It's just natural: the fewer customers you have, and the less market power you have, the more you care, the more you have to care, about your individual customers.
Indie developers / startups either become the size of Epic and Spotify, or get bought by companies the size of Epic, Spotify and Apple.
Find me the indie developers / startups that cannot be "corrupted" (converted?) and I'll invest as soon as they IPO.
Meanwhile, there are some companies that make it their business model to build trust at scale. Apple, Valve, Nintendo, Microsoft (exclusively for enterprise clients) are a few great examples.
A couple years ago I would have said Bay 12 Games, but they recently sold out to Valve, despite almost (more than?) two decades as independent.
Trust no one, trust nothing.
I'd be happy to view them differently. I just haven't been educated on the differences.
One of Apple's core arguments for why they need this kind of control is privacy. If someone is launching what is essentially a PR campaign against Apple, one of the first things to do is to make sure the website doesn't have any appearance of violating people's privacy.
Make it work without JS, make it work without cookies. Be conscious of the target audience. Requiring cookies is a really tone-deaf decision for them to make.