I'm not actually sure most customers actually "chose" the iPhone. For many, it's a social construct. Apple creates iMessage, if you want to be able to talk to your friends and be in the group chat or get Facetime calls, you need an iPhone. The Social fallout is large. I wouldn't fully disagree with you if..we were talking about buying a random brand Android phone because you could just buy a different one..but Apple's unwillingness to openness really removes elements of choice.

Then there's this other angle that I think it is weird that you think it needs to be black or white. The default App store will still be the default. You can just use it out of the box as you do. Any solution that allows third party stores would be a setting that would need activation and would probably say, repeatedly "Don't do this if someone told you to".

Then finally, the angle that developers want things for free is wiiiild. Apple actively locks features out of PWAs on purpose, the native feature support is awful. Apple stating that any digital transaction on a phone means they get 30% is a wild world. Imagine a world where Ford cars demand 30% of all tolls or 30% of all drive-thru transactions as it is 'in-car' purchases. Computers never worked like this and it harms users. If apple wants a cut, they should have to defend it with a better product rather than locking people out.