Considering that it's very very easy to make naive NFC systems that are terribly insecure, I think this is a good call. I disable NFC on my android device explicitly because I don't have very good control over what gets squawked out to anyone who initiates an NFC handshake. I want to know that NFC is *only* being used for things I directly approve of, and *only* being used in an anonymised token manner. Right now, forcing everyone through the Apple Pay system, is worth it.
Look at what happened with badly designed transit passcards that leaked personal information by NFC. Look at the downsides of how it's gone on Android. An NFC app could be broadcasting anything at all in cleartext, you don't know. Google don't check, and without an NFC scanner of your own to test an average consumer doesn't know what their android device is shouting out to the world via NFC. Google of course do not care, it's up to the user or the device seller to sort that out, because Google don't really consider Android users to be customers they have a direct relationship with. This is why I have NFC turned off on my Android device. Android's NFC is a gimmick that opens me up to security and privacy exploits.
Forcing everyone through Apple Pay means that Apple can maintain a respectable relationship with their customer, the owner of the iDevice. It says "Yes we have NFC, but NFC is a risky technology, and we limit how apps can use it to protect our customers privacy". And this is exactly the kind of thing the *have* to do now that they get letters from Senate Committees when new devices are released asking about the privacy concerns. Google get the same letters, they just don't appear to care enough till someone takes them to court about something, or simply view it as the hardware device makers problem not theirs.
TLDR: I do *not* want NFC being trivialised and everything uses it to start squawking stuff because "why not, it's there!". It should be very limited to secure use. NFC is something that for security and privacy reasons, certainly belongs in the walled-garden not the wild-west.