FTA: "The controversy follows comments last week by chief executive Tim Cook, who said that Apple wanted to see customers spend less time on their devices."
Apple doesn't make money from you spending all day on your phone. They would be fine if everybody would buy a phone, maybe a couple of apps, and set aside until there was a need.
You are mistaking them for Facebook or any of the other engagement-driven, ad-selling companies.
Apple most certainly makes money off of ads. It isn’t a major profit center but according to the following article it is on track to rake in $2B by next year. Also they make a nice cut of sales via app purchases an in-app purchases. They. Definitely want you using your device as regularly as possible to capitalize on that revenue opportunity. Their stance on privacy and security is a marketing angle capitalizing on the fear currently out there as a result of people awakening to how much of the web is monetized (I.e. with ads).
Again, nobody spends all day searching the App store. Apple's business model is not driven by your engagement. They make vastly more money when you make discreet choices, like buying a device, purchasing a subscription, etc.
Search ads in the Apple store that the third party apps couldn’t block any way. Yes they could block users from the App Store but that’s been part of parental controls in iOS for years.
Less time on your phone could equal less app purchases, less revenue for app developers, less loyalty to the eco-system. If everyone truly cut screen time down just 10% less a week, Apple would feel it through the app developers pain.
But you use the service, just not 24/7 or to the maximum capacity. And you might subscribe because it gives you other benefits.
E.g. I have an Office 365 subscription. I haven't used Office in forever, but it comes with 5Tb of OneDrive space (family account), so I keep the subscription to store my photos. However, I've filled less than 100Gb so far and I'm sure my family has even less than that. Same thing with Prime, some months I buy a few things things, others nothing at all. But I know that every package arrives the next day, so I keep the subscription.
TV content is a bit special in this regard, true. However... If you keep binge watching, how long until you have nothing else to watch? Would you not cancel your service, then? The service is then _forced_ to keep delivering new quality content at the same speed that you watch it. Maybe Apple doesn't want to play that game.
You are mistaking them for Facebook or any of the other engagement-driven, ad-selling companies.