It absolutely is a monopoly. They control the distribution within an OS that a good chunk of the population uses. Phones are not commodity devices that one can

It absolutely is a monopoly. They control the distribution within an OS that a good chunk of the population uses. Phones are not commodity devices that one can build in a shack - they require significant effort and investment, and it’s not realistic to say that PinePhone is going to be a viable alternative to Android and iOS anytime soon. This is akin to Microsoft becoming the gatekeeper of every single application you run on Windows under the guise of “it’s for your own good” - it would be infringing on your consumer rights, and you would have little decent alternatives to run Photoshop and Illustrator (without shelling out thousands on a Mac computer of course).