The one and only purpose of Developer ID is to prevent malware. Apple imposed the Developer ID code signing requirement on Mac developers a number of years ago.

The one and only purpose of Developer ID is to prevent malware. Apple imposed the Developer ID code signing requirement on Mac developers a number of years ago. If you don't sign your Mac app with a Developer ID cert, then macOS will warn about malware and refuse to launch the app when Mac users download it. Almost all known Developer ID cert revocations have been for malware authors. These revocations are initiated by Apple, not requested by the (malware) developers. There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about Developer ID, because people are comparing them to web site certs, but Developer ID is very different. When a Developer ID cert is revoked, all software ever signed with that cert is immediately disabled on every Mac in the world. It's a remote kill switch. This kill switch is only used in extreme circumstances, such as malware distribution. The cert owner's desires are not really relevant to Apple. The cert is for malware prevention only. Some Mac developers would prefer to be able to distribute their software without Apple's permission, and balk at having to pay $99 per year to Apple for code signing, but we effectively have no choice.