On the Mac, Gatekeeper and Developer ID were introduced in 2012. Before then, Mac apps didn't need to be code signed. You could distribute Mac apps before 2012 without paying anything to Apple (other than the price of the Mac, of course, though technically you could compile on a non-Mac).
February 27, 2012 "Developer ID is a new way to help prevent users from installing malware on their Mac. Along with Gatekeeper, a new feature in OS X Mountain Lion, signing applications with your Developer ID certificate provides users with the confidence that your application is not known malware and has not been tampered with." https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=02272012a
No?
> You have always had to pay a fee for the privilege of thinking about writing code capable of running on an Apple device
Again, for the nth time, no.
The $99 Mac developer program began in 2010. https://developer.apple.com/news/index.php?id=03192010a Before then, it was $500/$3500, as my previous link shows. [EDIT:] Here's another article from 2010: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/03/apple-reconfigures-m...
On the Mac, Gatekeeper and Developer ID were introduced in 2012. Before then, Mac apps didn't need to be code signed. You could distribute Mac apps before 2012 without paying anything to Apple (other than the price of the Mac, of course, though technically you could compile on a non-Mac).
February 27, 2012 "Developer ID is a new way to help prevent users from installing malware on their Mac. Along with Gatekeeper, a new feature in OS X Mountain Lion, signing applications with your Developer ID certificate provides users with the confidence that your application is not known malware and has not been tampered with." https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=02272012a