It's a fundamental tradeoff between allowing multiple ways for apps to be installed or forcing everything through a single installation workflow (a la iOS and its App Store).
OP had a good suggestion for a solution, something that allows gating surprise app installs.
The phone they have have that was being asked about is probably either free or close to it with carrier incentives.
Here on HN we are in a bit of a bubble. Most users of this site can just make a $500 purchase if they want to and not think about it. The median American's liquid savings are well under $10k, and buying the least expensive iPhone is a burden. "Buy an iPhone" is not a suggestion that should be made to a person who would have to put it on a credit card and would be unable to 0at.it off that month.
Yes, there are way more options to get sub $500 Android phones, but pretending like an iPhone is too expensive for most Americans when carrier deals are often as good or better for iPhone options (to say nothing of the older phones being sold by Total Wireless and the like) and when more people in the United States use iPhone vs Android is a little bit silly.
We just got $1130 from Verizon for my husband's old iPhone 14 Plus towards his new iPhone 17 Pro (I get a new phone every year so I’m just on the Apple Upgrade plan or I buy it outright each year, whereas he gets a new phone every 3 years or so), making it essentially free (we had to change the plan he was on but it cost the same as the old plan) and if he’d wanted a regular iPhone 17, he could’ve dropped down to a cheaper phone plan too. A 16e would’ve been even less than that.
