I do often think people forget that when the iPhone app store was released it was a game changer. The whole idea of a single place to download all apps and games was great for most people. It meant that everything was there, in the one place and managed through that one app.
Now a decade has passed and we're asking for change. That's fine, but we can't forget that when the app store first came out there wasn't this hysteria around the need to sideload. The app store as a place for developers to publish their apps was huge, Apple did the publishing for you. How that we all have more choice, we're expecting Apple to change to provide more choice.
I mean, I don't know if I'd call it "hysteria", but people have been sideloading alternative app stores on the iPhone for about as long as the iPhone has been around haven't they? I remember when I first got an iPod Touch in 2009, the first thing I did was jailbreak it and install Cydia so I could get emulators working on there.
Now I have always been a pretty geeky person, so I'm not claiming that I'm the "norm", but I would argue that there's always been some demand for alternative app stores. There are plenty of apps that people want to install the Apple clutches their pearls at (e.g. nearly anything with adult content).
As I've said in other threads, it's not as horrible as Microsoft in the 90s, because it's not difficult to buy an Android phone, your life won't really be made worse by buying a decent Android phone, but I would still argue that Apple's actions are anti-competitive.
I agree, I had also jailbroken my iPhone back in 2010 with Cydia. However I used that to unlock the springboard and change app icons etc, for me it was a bit of a gimmick with a fair amount of risk involved.
I would say if you looked at it percentage wise, it would be an incredibly small number of iPhone owners that jailbroke their devices to sideload apps. I think you can argue that there might always be some demand, but that doesn't mean it needs to happen.
My point is back when the app store was released developers went wild that there was this publishing place they could put their apps. The iPhone in 2010 was responsible for 99.4% of all mobile app downloads. And by 2010 there were around 30,000 apps & games in the app store.
Going back and reading articles about the app store between 2009 and 2012, there isn't negative discussion around the fees associated with the app store or anti-competitive behavior. There wasn't outrage over only being able to download apps through the iPhone store. There was discussion however about companies building their own Android based app stores, but those failed shortly after.
Now a decade has passed and we're asking for change. That's fine, but we can't forget that when the app store first came out there wasn't this hysteria around the need to sideload. The app store as a place for developers to publish their apps was huge, Apple did the publishing for you. How that we all have more choice, we're expecting Apple to change to provide more choice.
But we can't forget how beneficial it was.