the main reasons for the move to subscription (by everyone) are as following:

1. consumer protection laws - laws haven't caught up, there are none for subscriptions that benefit consumers (can't get refunded if a company choose not to refund - apple does, though).
2. finite wallet - every company's goal is to take a share out of your salary each month, subscriptions guarantee it, and in apples case, that's a 30% cut. There is more money to be made if you tie your finite wallet up into their ecosystem rather than you splurging on apps when you have extra cash.
3. skeleton crew - if you tie people up with subscriptions, you don't have to work on active development and can hire a cheap skeleton crew to maintain the software.

but yes, i'm well aware that they operate on walled garden principle. who isn't? but that's literally capitalism, exercised by a capitalist company. right to repair is the exact same principle. while i disagree with both practices, they aren't unethical, they are required by the concept of capitalism. it's literally playing by the rules of capitalism. beyond these two political moves, which aren't unethical, just capitalism at work (which could be argued to be unethical - but that's a different discussion altogether); they do a lot of work on privacy for their platform, work that doesn't matter, they'd still make billions with or without the gesture. they actively CHOOSE to protect user privacy, for no benefit to themselves and their platform other than looking pretty to consumers, consumers who would buy their stuff regardless of their effort. and hey, are you really going to say it's a bad thing they're fucking with both spotify and facebook?

when did they fuck over independent developers?