I think on macOS it's kinda a requirement, even if you ship outside of the AppStore, to be trusted by consumers. Because I think the app needs to be signed by Apple, in order to start the app without a warning and I think in order for Apple to perform the signing, you'd need a developer account.

I might be wrong here as I have been focused pretty much only on mobile, so feel free to correct me.

True. Apple devices are a lost cause for me, I don't even consider supporting them in my software. It doesn't even come up as an option in my head, I forget it exists. I'd never willfully have anything to do with their ecosystem, whether desktop or mobile. I wonder if eventually people like me refusing to support them will actually make a difference and force them to change, or if enough people will just continue to bow down to them and do what it takes to be on their devices that they can just keep their horrible practices going.

It’s a warning once that stops happening when you approve it. It’s not a big deal. Also happens on windows.

That is correct.

People aren't ignoring Apple hard enough. Why americans bother with it is way beyond me.

I find it inexplicable when people respond to a particular problem with a suggestion on which large platform/ecosystem someone should use instead, or avoid.

Switching ecosystems is nowhere near that trivial.

Ecosystem choices are dependent on content and tool investments, other devices owned, product groups, integrated technologies, network effects between people, between companies, customer relationships, existing phone payments, existing ecosystem familiarity and skills, on and on.

As for developers, they often need to be on the top 2-3 platforms to be a serious choice for customers.

Nothing wrong with highlighting different pros and cons of different ecosystems.

But a suggestion to switch ecosystems, without a very deep understanding of someone's particular situation, just isn't helpful advice.

I'd go further and state that "ecosystems" are evil as they erode competition. It should be easy to change products independently of each other, e.g. I should be free to choose between Apple iCloud or Google Photos for storing my photo library. Instead I'm forced to experience what you already mentioned: integration preferences on different platforms, network effects and so on.

Only direct product properties should drive users' choices, everything else just raises the market entry barrier for potential competitors.

"Ecosystems" certainly are a real problem, although I think calling them "evil" is a bit far. What they are is a way for companies to create an artificial moat, and artificial moats are very bad things.

Yeah, the only actual hurdle from Apple is the measly 8 bucks a month for a developer account. I would happily pay ten times that amount just to avoid the node_modules dumpster fire

And the hardware around it, that needs to be updated and managed.