You might have bad information. Very little of the software I run on my Mac comes from the App store. Even if your assertion were accurate... You'd still be able to use Safari, and web browsing accounts for the lion's share of most people's computing needs. So the score is:

Windows 11: lay-users can do literally nothing of value with their computer without signing in to an account they probably don't want

MacOS: lay-users can use the internet and download software provided outside of the app store without signing into an account that they probably don't want

Calling these equivalent would be quite an exaggeration.

I don't know, almost everyone who has an iPad in my family probably never used an app store. They just use it for browsing, facetime and calendar management - and all these apps are preinstalled. I'm trying to think what I have installed on mine that isn't standard, and it's pretty much.....YouTube? I could browse that through the browser if I wanted to.

Like, my point is that these devices are fully functional out of the box even without an account(but yes, it sucks that you need one to unlock it fully)

Can you no longer install free apps from the App Store on a Mac without creating an account or signing in? I thought that used to work.

It has Safari. But I'm curious why we are comparing Windows to iOS instead of it's desktop counterpart.