Hm... Why would the majority of these "valuable" customers choose such a flawed platform then? Maybe they prefer an ecosystem that has a vetting process to prevent apps extracting too much of their "value"?
Why the scare quotes? It is a fact, study after study shows that people who have iPhones spend more money in average[1]. This gives Apple a sort-of monopoly in the sense that if you want to earn money you kind of need to get iPhone customers.
Also I did not say that the platform is flawed, or criticised the fact that Apple vets applications. If anything I would like Apple to test the applications even more because there is still a lot of malware and crap apps there. (e.g.: fake VPN apps, virus scanners and whatnot).
Not to say that the platform is flawless, there is a genuine problem if you wish to create an app that Apple has not yet thought of because even if it might be technically possible, the rule 2.5.1 is there against you. In this particular case the developer has wrestled the VPN API to extract browsing patterns (from what I understand). This is not something you should do with a VPN, rather it should be done as a browser extension but hey, iOS does not have that.
Yes, Apple users spend more money on average. But it's not like Apple has a monopoly on these juicy users, and uses its evil walled garden to lock out poor indie developers from milking these "valuable" users.
These juicy users willingly chose the Apple ecosystem, precisely because it's a safe and trustworthy walled garden, in contrast with Android's offering.
Complaining about this is like a door to door salesman protesting to be let into a gated community to sell his crap. The people living in the gated community chose it precisely because they don't want any of your crap (among other things).
Yeah maybe it's a 'sort-of' monopoly in some analogy kind of way, but it's not actually 'monopolist' is it? That's just not true.
What they really mean is that the only monopoly Apple have is the monopoly on the exact kind of customers that this team would like to sell to. Well, too bad for them. 'Monopolist' implies some kind of legal or ethical issue, and there isn't one in my opinion, so let's not muddy the waters or imply anything by using the word.