I'll disagree with your disagreement - in part at least. Apple is still bigger than Meta or Google. Even if they had a strong channel to serve ads or otherwise monetize data, the return would represent pennies on the dollar.

And Apple's privacy stance is a moat against these other companies making money off of their customer base. So for the cost of pennies on the dollar, they protect their customer base and ward off competition. That's a pretty strong incentive.