Clearly we have been to different parts of the internet, cause that is definitely not what I observed in the past years.
It’s dumb either way. Google and Apple are publicly traded companies and therefore never have the end user as top priority. Satisfying them is just means to please shareholders, their top priority. And if it is not that, then it is pleasing some governing body (e.g. China, India) to expand market access and grow. For the shareholders again.
Gatekeepers like WhatsApp need to open their platform, but the other app developers need to attach to those provided connections. And so far Signal and Threema already announced that they will not use the opportunity.