13 years of the iPhone being the most popular consumer product in the history of the universe would seem to suggest that sideloading is not "a must"; indeed, some might say it suggests the opposite: that sideloading is in fact a huge plus and part of why the ecosystem is succeeding so well and users' security and stability of their devices is so superior to competing products.

Fine. Installing custom software is not an economic "must", but is a moral "must". If I have bought a device, then it is mine to run whatever software I want on it, and the manufacturer of the device has no moral claim over it.

If you agree to not side-load software via some EULA, does that change the moral calculus for you?

To me it's just a monopoly abusing its position.

But Apple is not a monopoly.

Yeah right. Just today's search in DDG news for 'apple monopoly':

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=apple+monopoly&atb=v194-1&iar=news...

That's like saying a Camry is better than a Ferrari because it has more cup holders.

Actually, Camry is better because it is a car that you can actually drive where I live, unlike Ferrari.

However, car metaphors aside, my work requires apps that maintain persistent connection with server. When I carry a supercomputer in my pocket that can totally outperform my PC from 1993 by a factor of 500x or more, I kinda expect it to be able perform basic computing tasks that it is perfectly capable of, hardware-wise. And the only reason I can't is because Apple forbids me, styling it as 'care' about my battery life.

Do you think about your phone differently than a gaming console or a DVR?