⚠ Sideloading Goes GlobalModerate threat

The gatekeeping moat rests on Apple being the only sanctioned way onto the iPhone; the danger is that this is already no longer true in Europe, and the exception may become the rule. Under the Digital Markets Act, Apple must now permit alternative app stores and sideloading in the European Union¹ — a genuine breach of the sole-gate premise. So far Apple has contained it with a thicket of fees and conditions that keep most developers and users flowing through its own store anyway, but the principle has been conceded in one of the world's largest markets, and principles, once conceded, travel. They already have: Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act forced a similar opening of distribution and payments from December 2025⁴.

The danger is contagion. Regulators in other large markets — and antitrust authorities in the United States — are watching the European experiment closely³, and each is a candidate to demand the same. If sideloading becomes the global norm rather than a continental carve-out, the sole-gate foundation on which the entire toll depends would be broken not everywhere at once but market by market, until the exception had quietly swallowed the rule.

The containment has been remarkably effective so far: Apple complies with the letter while preserving the substance, and its European fee structure means even developers who² leave the store often keep paying. It argues, with real force, that a single reviewed store is safer for ordinary users — an argument that resonates with many regulators outside Europe — and most users, given the choice, stay with the default store regardless.

Moderate, and trending the wrong way. The gate has genuinely been breached in Europe and held, economically, through clever fees — but the precedent is set, the pressure is spreading, and the sole-gate premise is now something Apple must actively defend market by market rather than simply take for granted.