Why is it hard to understand that a goddamn hidden “enable side loading apps” button for those who want it will not cause any sort of regression in your use of the phone.
If there's a viable third party app store without these restrictions, Facebook will immediately jump on it, and immediately start tracking users with no notifications in probably the most invasive way they can get away with.
The upshot is that thanks to this hidden "enable side loading apps" button if I wanted to use the Facebook app, I would have to use the scummy privacy invading version, and that's most definitely a regression.
Apple is really great at UX, they will find a way to make it hard for the general audience, so that my mother won’t install random malware because for it she would have to go through 3 pages in settings she knows nothing about, and I can run whatever I want on my phone.
Many of us believe they will not find such a way and that in fact no one will and it is impossible. That's the crux of the disagreement here. You believe this is a possible UX to build. I believe it is not possible to build such a UX.
As many folks have noted, Android does have a number of steps required to sideload. They also have a much more serious and active malware problem despite all the extra steps:
https://lifehacker.com/be-careful-about-sideloading-popular-...