But maui gives you free mac for desktop and android and ios for mobile.

tl;dr Yes, we will use Maui. At least as a wrapper to host SkiaSharp.
[Next UI topic will be another discussion.]

Details:

My current client was badly burned by dependency on Xamarin Forms.
Previously abandoned a Xamarin Forms version, and went back to older custom UI code.
Summary of that experience:

• Xamarin with native APIs on mobile platforms: Awesome. "C# everywhere" - game changing.
• Xamarin Forms: Problematic.

Due to this expensive misstep, and Microsoft's history of abandoning some technologies, Client is nervous about the long term future of Maui.
[I personally would go with Maui Controls for UI; but it may be "too little, too late"; too many developers have moved on to other frameworks. I'm not going to recommend it to a business client who is hesitant.]

Originally this was .Net Framework on WPF; "Xamarin Native" on Android, iOS. A separate project per platform.
My partner successfully converted their custom UI (which he originally wrote in C++ and GL shaders, years ago) to SkiaSharp.
The existence of SkiaSharp is a lifesaver for us! Thank you so much for your dedication to that.

And we've converted to .Net 8.
In .Net 8+, the underpinnings of multi-platform development looks solid.
Gained confidence in long term viability, at least at that level.