I hate the one step thinking here.

Have the fee when people submit an app for review, not before.

Best of both worlds. Lots of developers, rich ecosystem, high hurdle for spam.

The yearly fee also includes 2 developer tech support incidents where Apple developers can help debug a serious problem in your code that prevents your app from shipping.

I just don't understand why Apple should care at all what people do on their phones. It's paternalism to the extreme.

Paternalism: the policy or practice on the part of people in positions of authority of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to them in the subordinates' supposed best interest.