I really think this is insanely poor strategy on Apple's part. They know damn well that they're simply delaying the inevitable, and probably in deluded hopes that this can get watered down significantly with enough effort, but I don't think the public or the government regulators are going to be amused by these stunts in the slightest.

They manage to get away with a lot by virtue of having probably the best PR in the entire computer industry as a whole, I don't think that's an exaggeration; but if they keep pulling moves like this, I feel they risk losing a lot of their public support. For me, it's quite unusual seeing even the most popular comments on sites like MacRumors absolutely trashing and condemning Apple--there is usually at least one highly sympathetic perspective that has a significant amount of mindshare, but in this case, it's hard to not see how egregious and petty this really is.

And to be fair, I doubt their famously positive reputation is going anywhere overnight, but there are definitely cracks forming, especially between this and the near-miss with the CSAM scanning debacle.

Well, the ball is in regulator's courts. I have mixed feelings about some of the EU tech regulation, but that doesn't justify malicious compliance like this, and I hope that regulators do their jobs and send a message that Apple (and Google) are not above the law.