One user saying they don't need apps outside the App Store is an anecdote. Every person you ask about this matter over years saying they don't need apps outside the App Store is data.
Why do you think an app store isn't something people want, rather than something they put up with? What about the pre-app store world made it the one preferred by consumers in your mind?
> Why do you think an app store isn't something people want, rather than something they put up with?
Because it seems to be that way on MacOS. On Mac, the App Store is absolutely useless and exclusively something people do not want. It does not distribute the software users want, it charges them extra fees, and limits the type of app you distribute.
Judging by every single professional Mac user I've met, circumventing the App Store is a functional necessity for some. Most of them absolutely "put up with" the limitations and issues of MacOS.
> What about the pre-app store world made it the one preferred by consumers in your mind?
The freedom? The cheaper software? The stronger OS security models and lack of social-manipulation-as-a-security-feature?
If the post-App Store world is so great, people will keep living in it even when alternative stores exist. I suspect that most users will not give a rats ass about convenience if there's a 30% cheaper subscription elsewhere.
In a reductive sense, they're right. Computers existed for upwards of three decades without App Stores, and we distributed software just fine without 'em.
Apple could sign software the same way they do on Mac and effectively turn the App Store into an IPA-downloading PWA.
