If you can find specific numbers on Apple's profit from the App Store, I would be very interested to see them. Of course Apple's total profit is public information, but they don't break it down so specifically. The best I can find is that App Store revenue is on the order of $100B, but the profit margin has not been disclosed (though speculated by Epic to be ~80% [1]).
• Apple makes 100% of its profit from the App Store.
• This profit comes equally from the US, EU, China, and the entire rest of the world. (It doesn't, the EU is a smaller market.)
• Half of EU users would stop using the App Store entirely if they were allowed to side-load.
• Apple's keeps 75% of its revenue as profit.
By my calculations, this would mean Apple's EU App Store monopoly is worth 9.375% of the company's worldwide revenue. Please let me know if I made an error in my math.
Why is Apple willing to risk 10% of its worldwide revenue to protect 9.375% of its worldwide revenue?
Okay, I guess maybe Apple thinks it's unlikely to be fined the maximum amount, and is willing to roll the dice. But I also chose ludicrously favorable numbers here.
The EU is "leading in regulation", which means often, regulation (especially in the area of customer protection) is first introduced in Europe, then other jurisdiction follow that are at least "inspired" (think: lazy copy and paste of at least parts) by it.
This can be a positive effect for the world overall, but it is also annoying that some EU politicians describe that as (and confuse it with) "innovation".
As a European citizen, I approve of things like killing of cellphone roaming fees and forcing adapter uniformity (I wish they also enforced power plug uniformity across the EU's 27 member states).
Considering that the Google bribe to Apple for search is $18B, I can't see the App Store profit margin being 80%. That would imply that Apple makes zero margin on all hardware and other services.
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-profitable-is-apples-a...