Sure it would - apps with enough clout will do this: https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/mobile/android

And tell you the only way for experience X is to follow these safe steps to unlock your phone and use their launcher.

And if you don't like it, don't do it.

I don't like that argument at all. I can just as easily day if you don't like it, buy an android and use F-droid, but I won't because it's a lazy argument.

A freedom of choice has to be a freedom to choose. As I said farther you the thread, this immediately becomes an "and" rather than an "or".

"I can install this app via my preferred storefront" is a fine choice - but "I have to use all of the services that every third party wants to bundle in to use their specific service" isn't a choice, it's forced upon you and is no better than the situation we have now. We've seen this on android - try and install the Google camera app on a Huawei device and let me know how that goes for you, or use the Samsung app store on your Google device.

...and there's really nothing wrong with that. If it would, then PC gaming would have collapsed a long time ago.

Sure there is. It's fragmentation, and it's not a choice. I can't buy my favourite Unisoft game and play it with my friends in steam, instead I'm forced to download uplay or the epic launcher.

That's not a choice, and it's no better than being forced to use steam in the first place.

These are all business decisions by Valve, Ubisoft, Epic, etc... if it's too much of a hassle for me to play Ubisoft games, then Ubisoft has lost me as a customer, it's very simple (apart from that, Ubisoft has returned to Steam a long time ago: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/Ubisoft)

But none of this is Microsoft's business. That's the important part.

So it's ok for it to be one companies choice but not another company? As a consumer it's not a meaningful choice if I have to use their platform, and I'd rather have the situation where the platform holder enforces consistency - they're not perfect but I know that having a Google account with Google Pay is enough to get me into 98+% of applications on android, and I'm not worried about having to _phone_ someone to cancel a subscription (looking at you NY times)

Again, if you're happy with one app store there's no reason for you to use other app stores (eg I barely use other app stores than Steam, but I don't complain that there's EGS too). Other users may be just as happy with EGS and not use Steam at all. Maybe other stores focus on different product types (like retro games) or are generally better curated. yet other users might want to support a developer by buying directly from the developer without 30% going to a completely unrelated 3rd party. I really don't understand how this sort of choice can be considered a bad thing for users.

> I really don't understand how this sort of choice can be considered a bad thing for users.

Because it's not user choice, it's publisher or developer choice. If I want to play Fortnite, I don't have a choice to play it on steam or EGS, and similarly if I want to play league of legends,I can't play it on steam. This sort of "choice" isn't a choice for the user, it forces them to be subject to the data protection and whims of every publisher whether they want to or not.