We even have smartcards with e-ink displays and I'd personally want them to succeed here instead of moving security-critical apps to smartphones..

Because Google then abuses its position to inject unremovable spyware with elevated privileges into the phone which the user then can't defent against without making the phone "unsecure" and thus unsuitable for these apps.

If these apps really need a smartphone, I'd at least want it to be free of ad-related garbage in the system. I'm fine with not being able to flash a custom ROM on the smartcard as it doesn't contain hostile software.

Now if even Apple starts showing ads, there's no other choice but to restist this..