To be clear, "ability to censor" is basically just having an app store. Companies can decide what they'll include in their store, which means governments can also regulate what they're allowed to sell (or block the app store altogether in that country).
That doesn't mean app stores are inherently evil; they still do a lot of good by making sure people can easily find and pay for high-quality apps.
As you say, a reasonable alternative would be to allow side loading of apps, so that people can find and load apps distributed via various peer-to-peer ways, without Apple being responsible.
To be clear, what you mean by "having an app store" is "reverting 40 years of established software usage best practice and downgrade to dictatorial way where a central company can control everything".
Words have power. "App store" sounds up-beat, friendly and inclusive. But the rules behind what Apple has established that "App store" actually means are anything but.
Apple didn't invent the app store and weren't many mobile phones before the iPhone (running J2ME or whatever) even more restrictive?
Also, Android doesn't restrict side-loading in this way so I disagree that restricting side-loading is an essential feature of an app store as commonly understood.
No, phones before the iPhone running J2ME had side-loading. Some carrier turned that off, but if you bought directly from the manufacturers you got a phone that you could control and do anything with by yourself, without any third party stopping you. Manufacturers felt confident that their J2ME sandboxing stopped apps from doing anything evil.
I feel like you didn't really answer my point, though. I criticize you for using an upbeat word to make a dictatorial system sound good. And you counter by talking about something entirely else, word definition and word history.
Yes, a curated app store is a great option to have.
It's been said that the app-store-only model is not basically different because you can still buy an unrestricted competing device. I kind of agree, but that's sort of like saying people in China can still decide to move to another country. The cheaper such options are, the more weight to give such an argument. Most people aren't going to carry two phones around.
That doesn't mean app stores are inherently evil; they still do a lot of good by making sure people can easily find and pay for high-quality apps.
As you say, a reasonable alternative would be to allow side loading of apps, so that people can find and load apps distributed via various peer-to-peer ways, without Apple being responsible.