Although I'm generally happy with Apple's walled garden model, IMHO sideloading is getting much more important than ever for a few reasons:
1) Apple engaging in rent seeking may stifle progress and create another Nokia catastrophe. When a device is locked down, Apple can make you purchase inferior services and if they can do it for long enough they can end up irrelevant. Big things are happening in China, not good idea to milk customers instead of head on competition just because there's a political pressure on China and locked down devices in users hands.
2) Political instabilities all over the world. Apple services might not be available all the time and they might be limited due to political reasons.
3) Huge appetite by the governments to control user's devices and make vendors act as the police. Maybe you support this if you feel like the power is on your side but don't forget that your enemies can take over at any time. Locked devices are extremely risky for any kind of resistance.
It's also very interesting if Apple can manage to make this EU exclusive. If Europeans manage to come up with actually popular use cases, can Apple deny this to US users? For how long? AFAIK in China WeChat can do a lot of stuff that it's not allowed in the West, can Apple pull this in EU-USA context? IMHO it would be much harder.
1) Apple engaging in rent seeking may stifle progress and create another Nokia catastrophe. When a device is locked down, Apple can make you purchase inferior services and if they can do it for long enough they can end up irrelevant. Big things are happening in China, not good idea to milk customers instead of head on competition just because there's a political pressure on China and locked down devices in users hands.
2) Political instabilities all over the world. Apple services might not be available all the time and they might be limited due to political reasons.
3) Huge appetite by the governments to control user's devices and make vendors act as the police. Maybe you support this if you feel like the power is on your side but don't forget that your enemies can take over at any time. Locked devices are extremely risky for any kind of resistance.
It's also very interesting if Apple can manage to make this EU exclusive. If Europeans manage to come up with actually popular use cases, can Apple deny this to US users? For how long? AFAIK in China WeChat can do a lot of stuff that it's not allowed in the West, can Apple pull this in EU-USA context? IMHO it would be much harder.