As far as I can tell the main use case for side loading that people are making inevitably boils down to piracy. Emulators, torrents, cracked software. 95% of the talk about “freedom” on Android revolves around Vanced and other kinds of piracy.
I’m glad to see people talking about alternative browsers for PWAs (yuck) and open source projects but I am thoroughly cynical about the motivations of the vast majority of people advocating for side loading on iOS. I worry that this ability to pirate like you can on Android will result in degradation in app quality in the App Store.
> I worry that this ability to pirate like you can on Android will result in degradation in app quality in the App Store.
Is it possible for quality on the App Store to get any lower?
80% of App Store revenue comes from Pay to Win games (according to the Epic trial). Most of the other apps monetize through subscriptions for things like streaming services or don’t charge money at all.
That brings me to another thing I'd like to add. Over the years I've paid for quite a few apps on the app store that PREDATED most of the "monetization" of the app store. And the social shit and the login and account and ... shit that games have now.
Essentially all of these have disappeared from "my apps" and I can't install them anymore. I want them back.
And now this emulator comes out with the super monkey ball that my dad bought for me on my initial ipod (not ipad, pod). I want that game back on my current ios devices, and that one, with essentially no interruptions to the gameplay, not the current shittified version.
I’m glad to see people talking about alternative browsers for PWAs (yuck) and open source projects but I am thoroughly cynical about the motivations of the vast majority of people advocating for side loading on iOS. I worry that this ability to pirate like you can on Android will result in degradation in app quality in the App Store.