>Yes, it's been Apple's modus operandi with the App Store from the start: trick consumers into thinking the App Store being a monopoly is the only thing that can protect them against malware, illicit and questionable app content, pirated software, scams, and fraud.
When someone claims he's the only one who can protect the public I immediately see some question marks.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
Technically it's true that if you were to equate influence to the ability to protect, that when you lose that influence you also lose the ability to protect.
So far, it's all been speculation, even drawing parallels with Android or Windows doesn't help because it's not similar enough. I would expect a broader ecosystem or additional facets to an existing ecosystem to also cause an expansion of questionable quality and practises, but that applies to everything, not just mobile phones.
FWIW, my observation of Google's app store policies over the last 8 years or so is that they simply trail behind Apple's policies by a couple of years. Google is constantly expanding their store policies in order to better vet who is distributing apps, restricting the behavior of apps, etc. and they almost always mirror what Apple has already put in place.
I would agree with you that Apple isn't the only entity that can provide that type of vetting process but it also seems clear to me that a vetting process is actually a useful and desirable service.
You do know that except for arguably Hungary (and even that's slowly being worked on... it's just really hard), all EU members are democracies and the EU itself is a democratic institution?
When someone claims he's the only one who can protect the public I immediately see some question marks.