What? The most meaningful privacy controls are enforced at the OS layer as technical controls. The thing that prevents Facebook from accessing all your contacts is the design of iOS, not the App Store.

Allowing sideloading of apps does nothing to weaken the technical features meant to enable privacy and security that are already in place.

In fact, you shouldn't have been relying on the App Store in the first place, as malware/spyware can and does slip through their very human and very fallible approval process.

This talking point is so common in every thread about sideloading Apple devices that I can't determine whether it's propaganda or ignorance.