Setting environment variables

Hello!

I was wondering whether there is a simple way to set environment variables on MacOS - similar to Linux where variables defined in .bashrc get picked up by the operating system (and desktop manager) and the 'Environment Variables' settings menu in Windows. I would like it to work user-wide, not only when I open a terminal.

I found this one: Environment variables - Apple Community , but the link in there doesn't work anymore - and also the suggested answer with a launch daemon does sound rather complicated for this seamingly simple use case.

This one also doesn't work: https://phoenixnap.com/kb/set-environment-variable-mac (bash-profile / zsh profiles only work inside terminals but not on the system itself).

Others such as here refer to a ~/.MacOSX folder, which does not exist on my MacOS (latest version at time of writing, i.e., Ventura 13.4).

This https://stackoverflow.com/questions/603785/environment-variables-in-mac-os-x talks about using launchctl setenv PATH $PATH, but that does not persist over reboots, and launchctl config system path $PATH only allow to set the PATH variable.

This link also doesn't exist anymore: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPRuntimeConfig/Articles/EnvironmentVars.html

I'm a bit surprised that it is so hard to set up the environment variables as MacOS user. it sounds like a very common thing to do, especially as developer? Does anyone know how to do this - and, equally interesting, what are the design choices in MacOS that lead it to be so difficult? Thanks for looking with me for any solution that works ;)