All of us who still have to help people in our lives -- particularly elderly parents -- are very grateful for a platform where the users are not expected to be sysadmins. Which they will do quite badly. We have a 25+ year history of trying to get most people to not install random spyware/crapware/viruses on their computers, and it's fair to say the results are a complete and total failure. Except for ios and sometimes android.
Which is not to justify Apple's attempt to tax every dollar that flows through their platform, but something can be two things at once.
There is merit in pursuing a more secure future for computing, but there is zero merit in doing so alone.
I think you are both right. Apple wants to make sure all app sales happen through their App Store so they get a cut, and they are willing to make hobby apps difficult to load in order to make that happen. They don’t care about stopping hobby apps, but they care about making sure they get a cut of all sales.
The actions Apple has taken prohibit using self-written apps without paying Apple a relatively large yearly fee (and in many cases, also going through pointless store review).
So at best - Apple does not care about hobby apps (written by owner, for owner) because they have taken no actions to mitigate this impact if it truly is just a side effect and not intended. At worst - Apple is actively hostile to this usage and the policy is working as intended.
That distinction is mostly moot from the view of a user outside of the internal discussions at Apple regarding that policy. The impact of the policy clearly discourages hobby app usage.
Because the policy exists, a reasonable interpretation is that Apple does not want you developing hobby apps.
But, ultimately, it's not an important point either way.
They probably can't say explicitly that they don't want sideloading, as this could turn an eyebrow of a regulator, but making it more difficult to create hobby apps, which achieves the same effect does not explicitly show an intent and may keep regulator at bay.
