I am not talking about beta testing using https://testflightapp.com/ or even the limited distribution of beta apps allowed by Apple in general.
I know that in order to install "your own" apps for testing, you have to have an Apple Developer account for $100/year.
For people that have this, what is preventing legal distribution of the source code so that an open source app can be distributed, built, installed, tested and run on their own devices by end users?
I am well aware of the fact that this distribution model precludes a great majority of end users. This aside, it seems it would be an effective way to bypass Apple's restrictions.
If the process, for the end user, of registering the Apple Developer key, building and installing an app could be streamlined (likely by a Mac app), then the only barrier would be the yearly Apple Developer fee.
If there are compelling reasons to do this (e.g. high quality apps that likely break App Store policies or whose license precludes App Store distribution, like VLC or a version of Chrome that uses a native V8 javascript implementation and its own rendering engine, or many awesome apps that are available only on Cydia [and don't require a jailbroken device to function] or haven't been built at all), I think that some people might start to make that leap.
As far as I know, Apple would have no way to identify which users (either source distributors or end users) would be engaged in this activity. Nor do I think that this would violate any Apple policies (off hand, I haven't read the fine print, I suppose this could be problematic).
What am I missing? Why hasn't this been done yet?