If you act like a bully, and then recede at the slightest resistance, you just come off looking like a fool.
They need enthusiastic small developers to help build the Vision Pro ecosystem, and so far it doesn't seem to be going that well.
At the end of the day, developers are users first and foremost, and as users they are thrilled with Apple. Things would have to get pretty damn bad before Apple would need to worry about losing developers.
Apple will make the change that they're forced to make. Developers aren't forcing anything at the moment, but what exactly are they being forced to do by the EU? That's what's being learned.
As a long time Apple fan myself I'm certain, Apple fans have never been happy. :)
What is happening seems to benefit mostly massive competitors like Epic or Amazon.