This is disingenuous. Not only do you need a paid developer account, you are limited by the number apps you can sideload, you need to compile them yourself and sign them with your key, and they must be resigned and installed every 7 days. You also need to do all of that from a Mac.
Edit: Can't reply further, but the way of doing this is much the same as installing unsigned apps on an xbox. Using a (free) developer account you can sideload things quite easy using something like https://github.com/ios-control/ios-deploy
Anyone who pushes Web Apps as a viable option is being disingenuous about what it provides or purposely ignorant.
Edit: So the only way to do it besides jailbreaking is for literally everyone who wants to do it to pay Apple an extra $100 on top of what they already paid for their iDevice. (Sharing will get your certificate revoked.)
Using the web apps as a defense only shows that you won't admit to the massive problems with it - from bluetooth restrictions to lack of hardware level driver support.
That isn't a realistic option... it's a deflection from the subpar user experience Apple supports to enforce their mafia level protection racket.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/6/22421912/iphone-web-app-pw...
Anyone who pushes Web Apps as a viable option is being disingenuous about what it provides or purposely ignorant.
Edit: your point seems to be revolving around the access to physical disks for playstation/xbox, which is 1. Limited to devices that have a disk drive, 2. Limited to software that would similarly be sold on the sony/xbox stores, and 3. Still gives sony/microsoft a cut of the sale.
Edit 2: No, I'm not talking about webapps. You can sideload apps with a free developer account, similar to xbox.
Edit 3: Right, well I guess I'm being "purposely ignorant" and am actually talking about web apps. This was fun HN, lovely discussion.
Edit 4: It does indeed only require a free developer account, and you can strip and resign apps without needing to compile from source.