Apple's security measures feel like they're designed to protect Apple, with users as an accidental side effect.
If Apple ever takes away the option to run software that hasn’t been notarized then I’ll feel differently.
my opinion of apple would change drastically if they let me run my own software on ios. Heck, I can't even access my full filesystem on ios.
(EDIT: without asking permission, let alone paying or renewing a cert)
Strictly speaking, Apple doesn't have to do anything. They're judged against the quality of their prior products though, and prior Macs have worked well with an unlocked bootloader. If Apple threw that feature away (like the headphone jack or 32-bit software), then it would have been noteworthy, but it's not. You're ascribing goodwill to something as simple as a non-removed feature.
Whatever the case is with Macs, regulators at-large don't seem to agree with Apple's product segmentation. If they want to distinguish iPhones from Macs, they'll have to find a way that doesn't undermine user authority.
Anyone in the world with $99 can join the Apple Developer Program, and Apple's automated malware checker is not that great.
Moreover, any innocent appearing app can download another app and run it without having to go through Developer ID or notarization, so the whole thing is security theater.
If an app is not notarized, you can right click and open it.
Do either of these enough, and it becomes automatic. Back in the day, on Windows, pretty much everything out of the box had to be installed "as admin". Even the most mundane apps required admin. Folks just routinely simply logged in as "admin", giving every random app privilege, make the limitation effectively pointless.
Many apps on the Mac require an admin to install them. It's not universal, like it seemed to be on Windows, but many apps require admin. It's not a leap to blindly right click on a new downloaded installer, and type in your password to install it. Or "<App> wants to access removable media" "OK!"
We're conditioned to just click through these warnings because, honestly, we just want the software, and we just want it to work. We don't want to interview everything as a hostile party.