Then why hasn't it happened? Android has always had sideloading and this is not the case. Just asserting it to be false isn't convincing.
If they want an independent store, there is no reason for them not to create one for Android.
If Android was a model for what Epic wants, they would have built a store there.
It’s pretty obvious that this is just about them going where the money is.
Do you think anyone would install alternative stores on iOS?
If so, Android is obviously an irrelevant comparison.
Epic clearly believes iOS is different from Android.
Why wouldn’t Facebook just integrate a store into their App?
Why wouldn’t Google advertise their store in the search engine just as they did with Chrome? Why wouldn’t their store ship with an Android runtime?
Epic doesn’t just believe it would be different. They are prepared to invest millions of dollars.
All there of these are obvious and coherent reasons why it would be different.
Just saying that it will be isn't a reason. None of this has happened. Every attempt at doing this has failed horribly. Most users are not technically capable enough to even go about installing an alternative store.
Why, given that this has not happened in the case of the leading mobile platform, and in fact all attempts to even mildly break with the play store have been resounding failures, would iOS be any different?
You say:
> Most users are not technically capable enough to even go about installing an alternative store.
This is obviously false. We know for sure that average users can install apps.
A store is just an app. Why would installing an alternate store be harder than installing any other app?
Why wouldn’t Facebook just integrate their store into their app?
Both are still in the range of tens of billions of dollars. If one is worthwhile the other is too. Android is also by far the leader in number of actual users, which is what matters most to companies like Facebook.
The sideloading process is harder than just installing an app. Most users do not know how to do it and have no interest in doing it.
Google does not allow third party app stores to be distributed via their app store, and I assume Apple would do the same.
This seems like an unreasonable assumption.
Apple wouldn’t allow alternative app stores at all.
We’re talking about them being forced to allow them. I.e. it’s not Apples choice.
Why would anyone forcing Apple to allow alternative stores permit them to make it too difficult for regular users to do?