Apple does not keep spam and other crap from the App store, but it does police high quality apps that offer their own subscription services. Because Apple feels entitled to their cut.
Which is just not true. It has permissions, app review, and the same broken financial incentives as Apple.
I don't understand how anyone defends Apple's walled thornbush garden. Sure it's in neat rows with paths and it says it's a garden. But it's designed to maximize the amount it gets out of you for Apple's benefit just like Google, to make sure you can't leave, and to make you feel like the thornbush garden of Google is worse because they use gravel for their paths instead of paved stones.
Snapchat and Instagram did irreparable damage to Android’s reputation for an entire generation of people because of how relaxed Google’s restrictions were on lazy developers.
That's how badly Google mishandled Android, they listened to smooth brained tech bros who thought giving developers freedom would be a good idea, and Apple has always said they would ruin the user experience. Years later that "closed" ecosystem is so good Google has to beg lawmakers to let them access it because now there's a whole generation of people who see Android as a steaming pile of garbage, because it's exactly what Google let it become to the average person.