USB c is what almost everyone except for Apple has kind of agreed on anyways (except for parts the notebook market and some older tech that still uses micro usb for some reason)

It's not like in 2004, where Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and so on each had their own plugs...

And take a look at the PC market, where USB has been a thing since 1996 (I definitely did not have to google that *cough cough) ofc the plug evolved, but the design stayed the same so that you can plug 27 year old usb peripherals into your new shiny gaming PC. And I've had phones with USB c since 2016/17, so that has also been around for quite a while now.

About the 3rd party apps I can say: you are always free to stay within the "walled garden". Not just on Apple, but on Android as well.

If it wasn't for privacy I wouldn't need 3rd party stores at all as Google Play features almost every (legal) Android app in existence. 3rd party apps give me the opportunity to choose between a big tech store and a community open source alternative. Having store monopoly increases the risk of dictating "agreements" & levies to app devs who need to submit to get their software to the end user.