I still wish to sell to users of iOS.

Apple has conveniently, for them, set themselves up as an unwanted middleman.

This is only possible for them to do because they make billions per quarter and I’m a struggling solo developer.

I can’t believe people are defending apple.

Google is also listening though. They are slowly introducing similar restrictions after seeing what absurdity Apple gets away with as "compliance" of needing to also allow anyone to offer software for iOS. Our mistake is thinking it's fine that apple believers get vendor lock-in because there is still Google and Android lets you run whatever code you want. Yeah, until it doesn't

Companies can't simply do that.

In fact, you will have a guarantee of failure if e.g. your messaging app doesn't support iOS