Is the app store not part of the product? Their whole product philosophy is one of control. They've engineered all of them that way in virtually every respect. Repairs, hardware, software, etc. The entire stack is controlled by Apple. If you don't like that for the app store, where does it stop broadly? Other people didn't like the charging ports. Apple customers are constantly fighting the company to various degrees simply because it isn't really the philosophy they want.

You're just doing it with the app store. I get that. But their app store mentality is the exact same with every aspect of their products when you boil it down. You just happen to be okay with the other bits.