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Which is fine, but if I write a piece of software that I want to distribute outside of the app store, then everyone that wants to install it needs their own Mac, right? I don't think that's quite comparable to side-loading, which can be done from the device itself, without any external account or hardware.

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There's nothing magical in Mac. iOS apps use standard cryptographic algorithms for their digital signature, so one can write a crossplatform client which will generate developer certificate for user, sign any given binary using that certificate and install it onto iOS device. For user it won't be any harder than typing "iport install things" (or click button with some fancy GUI).

I'm surprised that this idea wasn't implemented yet.

Still requires an external Laptop/PC, you would not be able to install custom software using only the device itself.

It would require an enterprise cert or Laptop/PC to bootstrap, but theoretically you could build an on-device store. I'm still waiting for someone to build this:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BsOd4PXQ0SfsdMP0n30Ud_Aa...

Because when you do, Apple will require you to pre register devices and sign builds online from Apple servers, or do something else that blocks this

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