Indie developers are a nothing burger for Apple. It came out in the Epic trial that over 90% of App Store revenue comes from the major game companies with pay to win games and loot boxes.
I get where you're coming from and I find it just as bad how individual devs are being treated - but talk with some of your family members and non-tech friends about what they've got installed on their phones... And what they'd miss if it got removed.
It's gonna be
1. Social media / chat / SMS apps
2. Games (not one specific one - they'd be fine if any one game is removed, because alternatives exist)
Most if them will not even have a single app installed that can remotely be categorized as indie developed.
There are countless indie devs around that make great games etc - they're just not being discovered by normal people.
Following the money insinuates that is by design, but there is no proof for that... Only circumstantial evidence like the previously mentioned statistic of app store revenue and the way they treat individuals. But still no conclusive proof and both can be argued to be coincidences (i.e. because of low user count they don't consider them important to their platform, hence low visibility in store etc)
Personally, I find it highly suspect that the app/play store so heavily favors apps/games that are borderline user-hostile. Especially if I look to probably the only mainstream store that's looks pretty neutral to me: Steam.
Here your often get 1-4 dev projects hitting the charts. It makes you wonder if the same would happen if Valve became just as profit oriented and started to siphon money via in-app/game purchases too
