Let's see if the $599 MacBook (iPhone SoC!) can run VMs and software distributed outside App Store, i.e. like existing MacBooks.

If Pixel phones (with inferior hardware) can run Debian Linux VMs with external USB-c display, so can Apple tablets/phones. Apple and Google app stores have similar business incentives and antitrust constraints.

You are spot on, they can indeed run that software.

The problem that you and others with similar interests are running into is that you’re asking Apple to spend perhaps tens of millions of dollars to make a change that, frankly, almost nobody wants or cares about. I don’t want it or care about it whatsoever, nor does my grandma. That’s why this all plays out in court and in countries that want to stick a finger in the eye of American tech companies.

Anti-trust concerns tend to just be multi-billion dollar corporations (Apple, Meta, Epic, Netflix, etc.) arguing over who gets the slice of your wallet. None of these companies lower prices when they win court battles, experiences don’t get better, and as Apple in particular loses more and more control over the App Store they lose the ability, however flawed, to collectively bargain on behalf of regular folks against developers [1].

Can anyone point to a single major technology product/service/app, like Spotify or something where after Apple has ceded control over the App Store the company has lowered prices, or perhaps instituted tougher privacy controls than Apple has demanded on the App Store?

Is there a single example?

[1] Items like forced private Sign in with Apple, or disclosing how data is used, don’t and won’t exist on “the Meta App Store” because as a single person or small group you’d rather have access to Facebook and you’ll give up data for it. But Apple can listen to users and then force Meta to comply with those demands, however flawed the situation may be and however self-serving Apple’s interests may be.