I’ve been developing on MacOS for years and don’t think I’m familiar with what you’re talking about. I’m familiar with the warnings, but hardly ever see them.
When you download an unsigned program and try to launch it, you get a warning and refusal to run until you go to system settings / privacy and security, and allow the program to run from there.
That’s fair. What’s the Apple-recommended way to avoid this? I interact with a lot of software and tend not to hit it but I also don’t really interact with downloaded executables
You don't interact with downloaded executables? How do you procure your executables? From USB drives? Every single executable that didn't ship with the computer from the factory was downloaded. Even the ones built into the OS if you ever let it update.
I assume Apple would prefer everyone use the Mac App Store exclusively? I'm not even sure if that solves the problem but it's a non-starter for me anyway.