[threepio]

Unfortunately — because I am a longtime Apple user & developer — I have to agree that this is a cynical gesture designed to deflect regulatory scrutiny.

Moreover, I expect that this announcement is mostly paving the way for Apple to force all Mac OS apps to be distributed via the Mac App Store (as they do on iOS).

The optimist in me doesn't want to believe it. But this is probably consistent with Apple's economic incentives. Especially because the major role of Macs in the world is to provide a platform for developing iOS apps.

This week I ordered an M1 Macbook Air. Not because I really need it, but because a couple years from now I will be happy I have a machine that can run Big Sur, which will be remembered as the least restrictive OS of the Apple Silicon era.

Apple is the biggest corporation in the world. We can like their products, but we shouldn't give them more credit than, say, ExxonMobil or Foxconn or Goldman Sachs. They will make choices based on what creates the most profit, nothing more. That's not cynicism; it's why corporations exist at all.

[mrtranscendence]

I disagree with the assumption that restricting Macs to the MAS would be profit-maximizing for Apple. The context and expectations are different, and such restrictions -- hobbling many uses of macOS -- would drive developers away from Macs to competing platforms. I'm not even sure what those restrictions would look like; can I not execute arbitrary Python code? Can I not install Python packages from PyPI? (And how are they going to stop me, exactly?) Can I not use clang to compile a C project? To what extent can MacOS really be locked down in a way that doesn't drive away any developer who's not making iOS apps?

And if the Mac software scene stagnates, Apple eventually loses their core constituency.

[threepio]

I'm referring to GUI apps like the kind currently sold in the app store. There has long been a path to sell these apps direct to customers. But with each OS release, it has become more onerous (codesigning and notarization and whatnot). Still, no one wanted to tolerate the 30% tax. Now it's 15%.

The noise around the app store reminds me of all the complaints when Adobe said it would move its apps into the Creative Cloud on a subscription basis. Yes, a certain percentage of customers left. But the extra revenue more than made up for the loss.