Previously, there were two kinds of developers: Those prohibited from doing this thing, and those—like Netflix—who were fellow oligopolists with enough leverage that Apple allowed them to do this thing.
Regardless of what we may think of Apple, its stated rules, or its motivations, the outcome was that “The rich got richer and the poor got poorer,” because Apple only applying these rules to smaller companies effectively created a moat to protect the existing incumbents with the leverage to skirt the rules.
Now the playing field is still tilted in Apple’s favour—they own the orchard, after all—but it is no longer tilted in favour of its fellow oligopolists as well.
In all fairness, it's still disproportionately easier for larger companies to develop apps.
Look at Waze, for example. Waze uses OS-level APIs to interact with your hardware and provide a safe driving experience. Larger companies like Facebook and Google have no trouble accessing these APIs: their developer accounts are already entitled with a high number of permissions that a smaller developer would need to apply to use.
"I have a marvellous summary of all the ways a FAANG has systemic advantages over a startup, however the 8GB of RAM on my laptop is not sufficient to document it completely."
Regardless of what we may think of Apple, its stated rules, or its motivations, the outcome was that “The rich got richer and the poor got poorer,” because Apple only applying these rules to smaller companies effectively created a moat to protect the existing incumbents with the leverage to skirt the rules.
Now the playing field is still tilted in Apple’s favour—they own the orchard, after all—but it is no longer tilted in favour of its fellow oligopolists as well.