You know what the experience was in one word?
Shit.
For both developers and consumers.
Then comes Apple with amazing hardware, software and APIs with focus on developer experience.
Developers decide to ditch side-loading & stuff like xda-developers in favor of 30% fees to develop for iOS (and then Android) because it’s so amazing for them and the consumers.
It got to the stage where developers were so happy with the 30% fee and Apple/Google duopoly, many even didn’t even try to develop anything for other mobile OS’s including the Windows Phone store.
Microsoft tried to fund app developers and spent millions, without much luck.
No modern apps, no consumers, no sales.
Microsoft then had no other option than to admit defeat, write off billions and shut down the era of Windows on mobile phone devices.
Even Epic never released Unreal Engine on Windows Phone, and cries the loudest today about the duopoly they helped to build.
So now you’re saying after abandoning side-loading, agreeing to 30% fees for an access to a worldwide billion people marketplace, suddenly after 15 years it’s terrible and we should go back to side-loading again, because greedy Apple?
macOS has both an app store and sideloading. It works great!
I personally use the app store for apps I don’t know/trust the developer of, because I trust Apple’s diligent vetting regarding data collection etc., and I sideload everything that I do trust, or that Apple “wants to protect me from” for non-security/privacy reasons.