>If Apple were forced to allow NFC access, third party stores and real side-loading, then nothing would change for you. You could continue to use their app store [0] and their payment app just like you are doing now.
Not necessarily, if banks pull out of Apple Pay you might end up having to open each banking app every time you want to use that card, rather than having easy access to all your cards in one app (Apple Pay).
If you have no ability to choose banks that support the tooling you want to use with them, that's a problem with the banks, not Apple.
Also: Android has their Card Emulation API that allows banks (and other developers) to implement their own apps that do what Google Pay does, and yet banks broadly support Google Pay, suggesting that's maybe not as much of an issue as you'd think.
While true, it's worth noting that Google do not reportedly take a cut of Google Pay transactions while Apple reportedly do take a cut. This could incentivise banks to move away from Apple Pay.
Not necessarily, if banks pull out of Apple Pay you might end up having to open each banking app every time you want to use that card, rather than having easy access to all your cards in one app (Apple Pay).