What about all those libs and executables you likely install via brew, npm, cargo etc? Those are all applications

Sure – Apple are trying to stop people who don't know what they're doing from getting hurt. Hence the strong scrutiny on what is allowed on the App Store (whether it's reasonable to charge 30% of revenue is an entirely different question).

People who are installing things using a terminal are probably (a) slightly computer savvy and (b) therefore aware that this might not be a totally safe operation.

And, despite being an avid homebrew user, I've never had a problem there.

All of us having this discussion are outliers.

The things we talk about here which annoy us are for the much larger set of people who need them!

Put another way, it is all about the set of us who cannot really participate in this discussion.