>This exact thing is why I am not happy about Apple being forced by the EU to allow alternative app stores. The Apple App Store has served to mitigate some of the worse excesses and privacy abuses by various apps and social media sites.
Since USA is not part of EU, and USA is a giant market then I assume that USA citizens have no reason to get scared by your FUD, and if you are from EU and want the wall garden I am sure Apple will let you opt in in the USA version of the store.
Neither of those will help when some company whose app I want to use says “Hey, our app is only available on Evil Store. Install that first and enable all permissions”
This did not happen on Android, show me 2 or 3 example of a must have app that an USA citizen has to side load? There is not otherwise I assure the Apple PR army would have jumped on that occasion.
Also as I said the USA is not in EU, so Meta/Facebook will still have no choice then put a iOS app of WhatsApp in the Store.
I am 100% sure that this is FUD, reality shows that there is no must use app that a developer refuses to put on the Google Play store because they are evil, the apps are either not allowed in the store because ToS or the apps are small side projects.
Since USA is not part of EU, and USA is a giant market then I assume that USA citizens have no reason to get scared by your FUD, and if you are from EU and want the wall garden I am sure Apple will let you opt in in the USA version of the store.