Why can't I easily make a release build to launchable exe?

[strich]

I thought I'd give Blazor + MAUI a go as a potential replacement to Avalonia however I've almost immediately run into a roadblock - Why isn't there an option to simply build to exe? I have tried for the past 2 hours to find any resource online to get a simple build working. Whilst the builds complete, the executable never does anything. Based on what I'm seeing online it seems very common.