Unfortunately, there are no good choices.

Go with the alternative: no adverstising, and the user pays actual costs. Results in every website becoming either paid subscription,
or some form of donor supported entity. (Charity status may be an interesting option to explore??)

Either way, restricts access to the internet, especially for the poor and disenfranchised, and strengthens the power of the ultra-rich,
and mega-corporations, who now will exercise even more control over media, and content.

This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for FB, Google et al (aka FBGetal). Other jurisdictions, if the option you propose is followed, will jump on the regulatory bandwagon, encouraged by the fact taxes are being paid, and bribes are to be had.
If FBGetal decides to challenge instead of pay, other jurisdictions will file briefs in support of Maryland. Various levels of government, especially outside the USA, will go ahead and introduce their own tax laws.
Governments everywhere want/need/expect/demand new revenue streams, and insanely wealthy multi-national entities are obvious targets. Add in the growing public demand for regulation of FBGetal, and the legal/tax problems for FBGetal are not going away.

Since the dawn of time, everyone involved complains about prices. No supplier has ever been satisfied with their share of retail prices. No retailer has even been satisfied with their markup. No consumer has even been happy with the price they paid. One proof the free market may be working properly: no one is happy with their share of the revenue stream, but, every competent participant survives, and flourishes.

So, does Apple violate any present legal statute? If not, then either get new legistlation into play, or let market forces do their bit. Suppliers have a choice: they do not have to write software, or create hardware, for the Apple market. If no one is forcing any developer to create for Apple products, why do they? Because Apple makes money. Insane amounts of money. And developers want in on that.

Consumers have choices as well: they can buy Apple products, or, purchase any of a number of functional, acceptable and often cheaper alternatives. Apple sells, in large part, due to perception. Thanks to decades of careful branding, the majority of consumers see Apple as the luxury option in computers and devices. As long as that holds, lots of people will pay (enthusiastically or reluctantly) the Apple premium, and live in the closed garden.

No, but, it's usually included in the list of oxymoron examples found in most reputable dictionaries.

Live to work, or work to live. Lots of people are happy with the second, and, it's no more (or less)
"settling" than living to work is. For those dedicated to the second path, their primary passion, first love,
true purpose is not what they do. The job simply provides the means to live the dream and ambition, instead of
being the dream and ambition.
It's the route chosen by many creative personalities (writers, artists, musicians, etc.), avid amateur sports participants,
volunteers, dedicated hobbiests, travellers, etc.
In the immortal words of Bob Hope, one of the most popular and successful comedians of the mid-20th century.
""Golf is my profession. Show business is just to pay the green fees."

Let us sing the praises of the traditional office, where petty politics run rampant,rumour runs rampant and appearances always matter more than substance. The losers who put in the requisite time and energy to always do high-volume, quality work, will never have the time to devote to playing the promotion game. And promoting them would be a mistake - businesses cannot afford to lose the production.
How about those with "high career ambitions" get to return to the office? Leave the rest to work remotely in peace, if they so chose.

Because the concept worked so well in the past...

"St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"
(from the song 16 tons.)

Anedoctal personal evidence is just that. I lost 90 pounds in 10 months, 5ft 7 inches, 66 years old and badly overweight for nearly 30 years.
Sugar-free soft drinks were part of the diet plan - two to three cans a day. No headaches, no increased appetite, and it helped satisfy my rampant sweet tooth (one of the underlying reasons I was so overweight).
BTW: natural sucrose is a problem for anyone trying to control blood sugar, so, it's not all that safe either.
At the end of the day, there is no universal diet plan, other than calorie and carb intake has to be less than calories and carbs used. Going with lots of fresh veggies works for weight loss because the right ones are low carbs, low calories and low sugar. Exercise helps, but, reduced food intake is the most important. s
Like every successful move away from a destructive bad personal habit, motivation is the biggest key to success.

Innocent bystanders (users) will be forced to sit by helplessly, much like San Francisco in Godzilla (2014), while Apple and Facebook battle, destroying everything in their paths.

Any proof that would be more successful than raising the standard of living in China through trade?
China is changing, ableit very slowly, and the rise of a successful middle class is a large part of that change. China today, although far from ideal, is a huge shift from the China of the 1960's and 1970's, and much of that shift has been positive. Some of us are old enough to remember the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution", a decades-long campaign of terror and oppression that killed millions of Chinese, and enslaved most of the rest. Lack of trade, in part, enabled that horror show.
There is still a long,long way to go, but, there is measureable progress, and much of that progress is thanks to increased trade. The reality is there are no easy answers, and any "solution" will be painful, slow and rarely linear.
Absent proof stopping ALL trade will likely yield quicker, measureable and more favourable improvements (history suggests otherwise), continuing trade, as painful as it is,remains the better option.

Real work? Please provide examples of urgent necessary legistlation, introduced by Biden, being delayed in the Senate due to the impeachment trial.

We older types likley remember local bottling plants. Every decent-sized town had at least one bottling soft drinks, and one brewing and bottling beer. Those went away once the bean counters determined there were savings to be had in centralization of production. Which in turn fueled the drive to plastic. Glass was deemed too expensive to transport over long distances, and reducing the financial negatives of centralized production yielded more savings. All savings realized throughout the process, of course, went to the shareholders (as they should)
  Yet, shareholders are not paying for the consequences. A return to glass bottles, and local bottling, would greatly reduce plastic usage, while avoiding the enviromental impact of hauling glass long distances. Of course, such a move would cost more, but, likely cheaper for Coca-Cola, and the others, if the only other alternative was being legally obligated to pay their full share of the cost of handlling, and safely disposing of, post-consumer plastic.

We can expect to see more and more as various levels of government struggle with insufficient revenue, and rapidly growing infrastructure deficits,
    Few politicians want to make the hard decisions. Given the choice of spending scarce financial resources to make the IT infrastructure safe, or fixing potholes, IT repairs get deferred 99 times out of a 100. Politicians know few if any taxpayers care about IT upgrades, while the torches and pitchforks come out if potholes don't get filled.

Charging a premium for a "superior" product, while sticking it to suppliers, only works if the product has a large enough market share. Free market 101.
        No one is being forced to buy an IPhone, and there are lots of great alternatives on the market. If Apple's market share was 2 or 3 percent, no one would give a flying f..k about writing apps for it. However, Apple controls about 40 percent of the smartphone market. The phones are good, but, branding is a key factor in their success. Apple has a huge following. and, like it or not, the closed garden is a major marketing plus for the brand.
      Developers want in, but not at Apple prices. Understandable, but, no one is forcing them to write apps for Apple. And that's important. Most of the non-Apple market is Android. So why worry about penetrating Apple? Being successful in Android should make even more money than writing apps for Apple. Could it be the uncontrolled Android market creates so much down pressure on app prices it's just as hard, if not harder, to get a fair return, especially for an independant/small developer? Blatant rip-offs of successful apps, and malware pretending to be successful apps are huge problems outside of the official App store, no matter what the OS. As far as official app stores go, Apple's walled garden is seen, by the general public, as the safest and most reliable.

Therein lies the fatal flaw in your argument. Historically, being a Customs agent is full-time fishing expeditions. The only "probable cause" that has ever been required, for as long as there have been recognized borders, is your physical presence at the border crossing.
Not saying it's right, constitutional or even legal (in the strict sense), but, that is the reality - every face at the gate is assumed guilty until proven innocent.