[realusername]

You can't just open the apk directly, you have to enable installations for the browser and also go to deep in the settings and go past the scary warnings. That's not possible for the average user, not everybody is a developer.

That's not a viable distribution channel at scale and that's intended.

[AlphaCerium]

When I open an .apk file from a new application for the first time, I get a popup that asks me if I want to allow installations from unknown sources for this app, with a button that directly takes me to the setting to toggle this, and then immediately allows me to install the application.