[robertjpayne]

This is the myth that everyone is going to be screwed by. Nobody is going to be legally responsible for malware that ends up on your device.

The only difference is Apple has the $$ and incentives to remove it as soon as it's brought to their attention (assuming it's actual malware that may cause large financial loss not just copyright infringement).

Alt-stores will be ridden with malware and nobody is going to be legally responsible for it. We can just hope the alt-stores that end up existing have incentives to keep them "clean".

[firstbabylonian]

Correct, which is why allowing no-store app delivery would unleash an even greater chaos. In a world where any random website can trick a user into downloading an app via sideloading, there's no hope to protect people from 'unclean' software.