Yes, how notarisation works currently on the Apple platforms is designed more for Apple's benefits than an Apple developer's or user's interest. When notarization can only be done through Apple, they have undue control - for e.g. they can ban any app that you create on their platform. Bad for malwares for sure, but not good when some government or Apple decides they don't like your app. Remember that all App Stores apps are ultimately signed by Apple, not by the developer who creates it (the developer signs and uploads the app, and Apple replaces the signature with its own). Self-signing an app also require you to get a "free" developer certificate through Apple by first signing up to their developer program and agreeing to all their overbearing terms (which they use to force themselves as a middle-man, to exploit both their developers and users). A self-signed notarized apps generates two sets of hashes - one which is stored in the app and one in Apple databases for "verification".

Thus, notarization also acts as a way for Apple to spy on its user and determine what apps they run - both when you install from the App Store or when you install it from outside the App Store. The way the whole process works, open source softwares (which are popular and compete with Apple's own app and other paid apps but often cannot bear the unnecessary burden of jumping through Apple's hoops) are also tarnished with all the popups about security threats, thus discouraging their use amongst non-technical users. This is great for Apple ofcourse because they can't make money of free open source developers (unless of course, they use their code to make their own applications, which they have no qualms about).

Imagine this too - How would you like it if Apple allowed you to view websites in Safari (or other macOS browsers) only if they had an SSL certificate from Apple?

So it is a disingenuous argument that people here are being "stupid" for complaining about Notarization. It's Apple forcing itself as the middle-man here and then exploiting its developers and users that's the issue.