In the US, Square terminals present QR codes for CashApp payments. They could more heavily lean into making a competitor to visa/mc. Would be nice if Apple Pay allowed non-visa/mc payments too.
It does, a number of domestic NFC payment schemes like EFTPOS (in Canada) or Interac (in Australia) are supported. Or eMoney cards in Japan like Nanoco or Waon. It's just Visa and Mastercard have a complete stranglehold on the US market, there's no domestic competitor.
(You can check for yourself, open up the Apple Wallet app, select your Apple Cash card, use the Ellipsis […] menu to go to Card Details and it will show your card number and network among the details.)