Let’s stop pretending any of it makes sense. Why are Mac app devs not charged the “Technology Fee”.

Because they don’t have to sell on the Mac App Store, they can use their own website. That has nothing to do with other browser engines being available.

And they still must pay the 100$ annually to sign and notarize.

Because MacOs is around 10 to 15% market share it make sense to use every incentive available to attract developers to another platform than Windows. There is a hidden technology fee, but it make more sense not to charge for it.

iOS is more like 50 to 55% market share so the goal is more to filter out bad actors and keep a high standard. Also let's milk that cash-cow.

I'm not necessarily agreeing with this approach but I got to admit it makes sense.

It’s NextSTEP all the way down

And they have different attack surfaces and vulnerabilities. In the abstract, our phones are (for better or worse) far more critical to our lives than our laptops. They go with us everywhere, they're increasingly our keys for various physical and digital access. They're off-board brains and backup. Generally speaking, I would say a compromised phone puts the average person in a worse situation than a compromised laptop.

Fine, but where’s the evidence alternate browser engines are such a massive security risk? I see none, but I see many billions of dollars Apple is making from applying a 30% tax on any app I buy. And to be clear, consumers pay that 30%, developers pass it on.

So why can't I benefit from a strong, secure virtualization on my phone, like I do with Qubes OS?

Why downvotes?