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I have yet to get a good answer to this question: what do these checks do? They just confirm the developer has $100? Does Apple actually make sure signed binar

• jeroenhd 6y ago
  When an application turns out to be malicious, Apple can remotely disable it by invalidating the developer certificate globally. This is how some mac viruses were stopped; the developer license was retracted, making the executables hard to open in the background, slowing the spread or even killing the virus during its infection track. It also maintains Apple as the administrator of your computer. You may have paid Apple for your laptop, but it is Apple who decides what you can and cannot execute. Options to work around the blocks Apple throws up are reduced and made harder with every new release. I predict that eventually all binaries will need to have Apple's blessing or be signed with a corporate certificate, just like on iOS. It's still years away, but the direction Apple is taking this is obvious.