As I said, they tried and failed because nobody downloaded it. I'm not sure why you're suddenly bringing Epic's motives into a comment chain about the desirability of sideloading though? Epic is obviously looking to skirt store fees and doesn't actually prefer to run their own store, but that has nothing to do with anything above in the chain.
I don't think most people would. I think most sideloading would be by users making things that fall outside of what Apple allows on their store, like on Android. I see no coherent reason at all why things would be any different on iOS, and nobody has presented one here beyond just asserting the premise that it would be different, and I don't think "Epic believes it is" is a convincing argument.
These are not coherent reasons why it would be different, they are assertions that you think it would be. None of them even speak to any difference between the platforms.
Just saying that it will be isn't a reason. None of this has happened. Every attempt at doing this has failed horribly. Most users are not technically capable enough to even go about installing an alternative store.
Why, given that this has not happened in the case of the leading mobile platform, and in fact all attempts to even mildly break with the play store have been resounding failures, would iOS be any different?
If they want an independent store, there is no reason for them not to create one for Android.
If Android was a model for what Epic wants, they would have built a store there.
It’s pretty obvious that this is just about them going where the money is.