I agree that most customers are not asking for another App Store, but they are being negatively impacted.
1. Apple has blocked apps as objectionable because they were political even though simply factual. [1]
2. Apple's lock on the App Store facilitates government blocks on apps that Apple itself would otherwise deem fine. [2]
3. Apple blocks "adult" oriented apps. How many times do people have to rehash the lines between art and porn with authority gatekeepers instead of making their own choices?
4. Apple blocks game streaming apps, and other apps that act as front ends to other app-like worlds on the web, a whole new category of innovation cancelled. [3[
5. Apple inserts itself into otherwise peer-to-peer transactions, i.e. in-app non-code content purchases. This economic tax is both unfair, but also a dampener on innovation.
6. Apple on iOS restricts the downloading of code within apps to educational situations. (Currently rule 2.5.2 [4]) This is a huge dampener on innovation. Coding, including no-code coding, should be available to anyone wanting to be code literate or want to make their own tools. I get that their are safety issues, but those can be addressed with sandboxes, etc. Again, another layer of innovation killed off.
In summary, instead of being a bicycle shop for the mind, Apple's app stores block many kinds of innovation, tax providers in ways unrelated to Apple's role as phone provider, and routinely censor useful apps that are politically unappealing to Apple or governments, threaten Apple's lock on development tools, or based on Apple's sensitivity to safe (from a tech point of view) material where legitimate opinions vary as to what is desirable or not.
This is all user hostile.
Noting that there are alternative phones isn't a good response, as Apple's phones are at the center of tightly knit ecosystems. Customers do not have the ability to mix and match products between a few ecosystems and get the same value.
I view the App Store as Apple's new Achilles heal.
Apple's gatekeeper role has created perverse incentives for Apple to block significant innovation, economic viability, and freedom of expression on devices at the center of many of our lives.
Perverse incentives don't go away. They tend to metastasize (pun very much intended) [5].
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2017/03/28/apple-drone-striking-app-remo...
[2] https://www.vox.com/recode/22680010/russia-apple-app-store-s...
[3] https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/08/07/apples-block-of-x...
[4] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/29/facebo...