My expectation here would typically be that the company itself is governed by a stable, democratic government. It matters, because different legislations can impose different requirements (see recent changes in Australia for example).

Yes, banking secrecy has nothing to do with this and doesn't really apply, since that is more about someone not spilling your information, while here you already ensure on your device that the data is not visible to anyone.

I think you are right - it's a marketing element, but most companies do that, don't they? See for example Apple with "Designed in California", which is really just trying to not only say "Made in China". People have known associations with certain countries (such as Switzerland), which are used for marketing, yes.

The whole argument about them promoting an app „for free“ is a bit ridiculous. They clearly knew the amount of commission they were going to earn from pushing that app through their App Store - so please admit that you clearly didn‘t do this out of the good of your hearts.

The same goes for the portrayal of „look how much money they made through us“ - yes - and look at how much money they made you along the way. I mean if Epic made 600 million, than you made about 260 million - from the very same people that paid you for the hardware.

I think if the App Store is such a tremendous value, why don‘t you ask users to pay for access to that App Store directly. Let‘s see how valuable everybody thinks the App Store is when they actually have to pay an access fee directly to Apple.

I‘ll admit that having the Apple iOS ecosystem is of certain value, but Apple doesn‘t even allow you to install your own OS. My point is that if I buy a hammer, should I be forced to use it only for hammering nails or could I use it for other things as well?