I think I like the old way better.
Your old way still exists. Approximately all real world users demonstrably prefer the new way, but if you're set on your old way you can still write software for macOS and Windows. It will pop a warning, but you can make it run anyway. Give your users instructions for bypassing those warnings. If you trust them to manually verify your software then you trust them to follow those directions.
If your selling software, this probably isn't a good strategy. However, I consider it perfectly reasonable for software that's being created in one's spare time and offered for free.
(I think the current situation we have on Windows / macOS is a perfectly fine balance, btw—except for drivers, where installing unsigned copies is way too difficult)
Perception is everything in those first few moments a user get his hands on your software. But now if I dont pay the entrance fee I potentially get abandoned by said user bc they have been scared off.
Its not an app store yet. Give it 5 or 10 years when we no longer have an open web and all we have are walled gardens.