1. Russia has sufficient leverage. Most smaller countries do not.

2. “These pre-installed apps will also be deletable after setup is complete, just like any other third-party app that is downloaded from the App Store.”

That’s as far as Apple was willing to go. The Apps also don’t have privileged access to anything private.

If the US or EU forces Apple to allow alternate stores, both of these protections will be gone, forever.

And once they are gone on Apple devices, why would anyone imagine we’ll ever again have a widespread platform that doesn’t have government mandated software?

Apple’s dominance is at best a transient problem. Let’s not trade it for a permanent one that is far worse.