Back in the day if I wanted a non-stock ringtone, you would have to purchase it through Verizon, it would’ve likely cost $3-5. iTunes was comparatively a lot cheaper, and also basically allowed any arbitrary mp3 to be used as a ringtone.
Verizon also used to run their own app stores full of games and low quality music; the fact that it was free or $.99 on Apple’s stores was generally a net price decrease.
I mean, the software also worked poorly even if you did cough up. And at least the iPhone lets you move default apps off the home screen, out of sight never to be seen again.
I never asserted that every phone would have it. I asserted that I buy iPhones specifically because they don’t permit anything like that, and that it would be a fairly obvious target for those shenanigans once sideloading became permitted. US carriers already do dubious things like lock SIMs on phones.
I can move bloatware icons off the main screen on android. That's different from uninstalling them.
Your assertion was that Apple disallowed carriers from loading up phones with bloatware. So what? So did other phones. That there exist phones with bloatware does not imply that all non-apple phones are festooned with bloatware and all Apple phones are free of bloatware except safari.
But if your assertion is to be interpreted as anything else it's a distinction without a difference.
Verizon also used to run their own app stores full of games and low quality music; the fact that it was free or $.99 on Apple’s stores was generally a net price decrease.