My concern is less about random one-off purchases but more the management of on-going subscriptions. Having Apple handle that, is a blessing, from a user perspective. I have a single place to manage all the random $1 - $10 subscriptions that I have, making it easy to change/cancel at any moment's notice, and from any device.

I don't think there's anything in this injunction that stops Apple from building a mandatory subscription-cancelling API, which I wouldn't be surprised if they're actually already working on due to earlier rulings this month. In other words, you might be able to subscribe to FooCalendar using their Stripe API system, but FooCo has to make sure that your FooCalendar subscription shows up in your list of subscriptions, maybe under a "Non-Apple Subscriptions" list, that still lets you cancel with one tap -- or at least one tap to take you to that app's subscription management page.

(I'm sure there will be some people upset at that kind of interfering overreach, but it's the kind of interfering overreach most of us would actually like.)

Why would Apple make and provide something like that? They won't get anything for providing such an API to make the billing experience nicer for their competitors. It's directly in their interest to have as many scam billing providers as possible so they can point at them and tell us that this is what they protecting us from.

What is to stop you from searching for services that still let you use Apple Pay? No one is stopping you from living in your tight-knit Apple world, but you seem discontent with the idea that people will no longer have to live there and would rather find ways to force them to stay there with you.

Maybe those users would be better off with the more popular products offered by Apple's competitors.

I don't think Apple Pay can do that? It's a one off payment thing.

I’d trust them a lot more if they used Apple Pay. Just saying.