This really hasn't got anything to do with App Store exclusivity. They have a business model that's widely used and has been perfectly legal and established for many decades before they adopted it. This happens to make them vulnerable to certain forms of regulatory control. That's a government and regulatory issue, not a business issue.

This.

After Belarus, I thought Apple would have learned it's lesson and might loosen it's so-called "security" a bit and allow 3rd party apps/app stores on their phones, but nope; they went full steam ahead into their M1 chips with forced code signing in ARM, demonstrating that they learned nothing.

Apple positioning itself as the sole proprietor of what can and cannot run on their machines will only get worse as censorship becomes normalized.