Exactly this. Apple has been sugar coating their initiative as privacy moves while they are actually strategic moves with every step towards crushing Google.
The problem starts they focus on services revenue. The old days Steve Jobs would built Services to sell more products. Now Apple are building services only to extract more profits and revenue.
And as the web include Apple ID for login, more users will forever be lock into Apple ecosystem even on the web. You no longer have users or customers direct relationship. Everything goes through Apple. And in the name of good and privacy Apple is standing in between every business and their customers. All while acting badly in the case against Epic when things dont go their way.
But their services revenue is from selling stuff (apps, in-app purchases, music/video/game subscriptions, cloud storage) to their users, it's just digital stuff instead of hardware. That doesn't change anything fundamental about the business model. They make money from selling stuff to their users. How is that at odds with the grandparent comment?
Is selling their search bar to Google (very significant part of services revenue) "selling stuff"? Seems like it's more like the "you're the product" line Apple likes to market.
Don't read the marketing materials, read the actual financials.