About “Proprietary App Store”: the store itself and many apps on there are proprietary

Doesn’t matter. The point is that devs have to jump through completely arbitrary hoops and pay Apple money just to make their apps available to Apple users. And any money they take they have to give 30% of the income to Apple for the privilege of running it on their hardware.

About “Gaslighting their customers”: I’d like to see hard proof on that.

There isn’t any. But all you have to do is look at their actions.

I’m not saying iPhones don’t have their advantages but you don’t understand what the actual problem is. And it comes off as intentional.