Weren't most developers already generating a certificate with Apple for the second category? I was paying apple 99/yr when I was actively developing a non-app-s

Weren't most developers already generating a certificate with Apple for the second category? I was paying apple 99/yr when I was actively developing a non-app-store app largely just so I could get the app signed with my developer id. I tried reading into alternatives it seemed like a risky process. Ideally I'd like to pay a bit less if I'm not using the benefits of app-review, but the notarization process seems like a decent compromise. Even on windows my experience is that signed-non-windows-store apps can get flagged as malicious upon download if they're fairly niche/aren't used by many people, supposedly using an EV Cert helps with that. The user experience is actually worse from my experience (windows will show something red, then you have to click some non-obvious buttons to successfully run the app).