If Apple detected a piece of malware in the App Store and realized it had been downloaded thousands of times surely they can do something to help out those who have downloaded it? Like an update to the app to remove it possibly?

Personally I have to agree with your thoughts and I stopped torrenting years ago out of fear of a ransomware and only buy legitimate software. Younger me was not able to afford that and my security suffered as a result.

When Apple identifies malware they can update macOS to block or remove it. This doesn't require the Mac app store to fix, and piracy doesn't have to be the cause, for instance Mac Defender was distributed through its own websites. Ironically it was suggested this fake anti-malware software could be avoided by using the Mac app store, but malicious anti-malware software has also been spread by and removed from the Mac app store. It's the same for users either way, Apple addresses the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Defender

https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-promises-os-x-update-t...

> downloaded thousands of times

You wish, the Xcode ghost infected apps had 500m installs in total.

They were silently removed.