Where do you think those app developers / apps originally came from.
Huge amounts of people bought those iphones first man.
Huge amounts of people bought those iphones first man.
And devs complained that there's no SDK, and Apple told them they can make web-based apps, and they didn't like that.
Now the have an SDK, and they complain they can't create nice enough web-based apps.
Apple needs all their third-party developers just as much as those developers need Apple -- more than at least some of those developers need Apple.
I'd need to save some short cuts for things like Google Maps, my banks, etc but that seems like all of the hassle.
I might miss the notifications (exclusively for the messaging apps - for all other apps I don't want them to have notifications) but otherwise, the biggest annoyance would be on the airplane I wouldn't have some pre-downloaded streaming content from apps like Netflix and Youtube.
For me removing non-Apple apps would render my phone useless: losing contact with my friends on WhatsApp and Signal, no way to call an Uber/taxi, no mobile authorization for my bank accounts, no MFA apps that I use for work...