You can’t have both a secure platform and a platform where anyone can arbitrarily run code without a gatekeeper. Apple is that gatekeeper because I, the user,

You can’t have both a secure platform and a platform where anyone can arbitrarily run code without a gatekeeper. Apple is that gatekeeper because I, the user, want them to be. Apple has shown me, as a user, that the trade off they make between giving developers open access and protecting users from malware to be a sane one. Does it make it harder to monetize an app? Totally, but for many iPhone users, that’s a feature, not a bug. The developers are not apple’s customer, so they’re not building a product around their needs — which we honestly need more of in tech. If I felt more strongly about Apple being a gatekeeper on its own platform, I might use Android in some flavor. But I just want a phone that works and has the apps I want to use without a bunch of garbage cluttering it up.