When I buy a computer, I have the expectation of installing apps on it after purchase, and that doesn't necessitate any relationship at all with any app store provider of any sort (ie. Apple).
(When I buy a pocket supercomputer, I have that same exact expectation. It's often left unsatisfied, but I still have it.)
The trouble is that we haven't figured out a trust model that works when we do exclude that relationship. The traditional Windows "run setup.exe" model is terrible for modern expectations of security. The alternatives available today are still very far behind the safety that ordinary users get today when they do enter a relationship with the manufacturer. Unless you're an expert and not a typical consumer.
I certainly want the gate. I just acknowledge that some kind of relationship with the hardware manufacturer for the benefit of the ordinary consumer is the best that the technology industry can offer right now.
A sternly-written, notarized letter of indemnification? A bizarro-world sequence of events (like activating Developer Mode on Android)? A game of Galaga which, if played perfectly, unlocks the gate just as doing so unlocks the black car in Ridge Racer on the PSX?
I don't know. It's a gate that allows a person to leave the garden. It exists to be opened, and to be passed through, and also to be closed again -- or to be left open. :)
(The UAC prompt in Windows is also a gate, if existing work is to be studied.)
I know what a gate is for. My question was trying to get you to explain the middle ground between the extremes. That it is hard to visualize/imagine is kind of my point. The UAC prompt is an excellent example of a potential middle ground that is definitely a gate but a near useless one.
(When I buy a pocket supercomputer, I have that same exact expectation. It's often left unsatisfied, but I still have it.)