[Someone1234]

It doesn't cost $1000 even today, and as EV Code Signing certificates become more popular the price will fall.

A non-Code Signing EV certificate is "only" $100-200 right now from tons of vendors. All we need is for them to flag it for Code Signing which is "free."

[Lan]

Until you convince those CAs to start signing for code, they still cost $400+. And remember, that's per year. The driver will continue to function after that year, but they will either need to cough up another $400 the next year, or cease development. Even at $100-200 per year that's still an unreasonable cost for hobby projects.