First, there isn't a clear line between "the common person" and everybody else. Every first-time user, whatever their age, is a potential power user, if they aren't taught to be subordinate to a remote corporation in the control of their own hardware.

Second, many "uncommon people" are the sons and daughters of "common people" and will learn to hack -- or not -- on their parents' computers.

Common thread: helplessness can be taught and learned. It's convenient for Apple and an inevitable state anyway for many users, but it keeps other "users" beneath their potential.

This is like saying that car designs should be more "mechanic friendly" and less "closed" because every car owner is a potential mechanic, and mechanics learn by working on their parents' cars.

How would you feel about a car company that offered a model that is easier to maintain and operate but harder to modify?

If—and I think this is possible—the only way to make a more usable machine is to take away some "power" (not the right word, but I think everybody knows what I mean), then I'm very happy for there to be more-usable-less-powerful machines, as long as there are still less-usable-more-powerful machines available, too. I'd hate to see a whole evolutionary branch of more productive/enjoyable machines be not explored just because they don't do some of the things that we like to do.

And if it is possible to achieve the same usability gains without taking away power but Apple still goes that route, then I'll be happy to see somebody beat Apple at their own game.

All this is talking about some hypothetical possible future, of course: nothing Apple's announced so far has in any way reduced the capability of Macs. But, yes, such a route does seem more "on the table" today than it seemed a week ago.

Sorry, but if anyone expects me to pay for the right to develop on my own machine, they can buzz off. I'll just go back to GNU/Linux. I hope that others will do the same and we see a brain drain of developers.

I doubt you'll have to pay to develop for Mac, the 99$ are for joining the developer program that allows you to get your apps on the App Store (Mac or iOS). Xcode, compilers and the possibility to run and sell your programs via other means will still be free.

That's my point. It's free at the moment, but the fact that I can't compile and run my own code on my iPod Touch or so without paying the $99 is abhorrent. I don't know if a similar situation will take hold on the mac or not.

Pah, when I was a teenager in the mid-90s I had to spend $300 (which was a helluva lot of money for me in those days) to write software for my mac (or rather, my parents' mac, which was the only machine I had).

That was the dark age of self-taught developers. Before that, everyone had BASIC for free, and after that everyone had gcc for free.

It's unclear if you're making a projection about the future or mistaken about the present, but Apple's Mac dev tools have been zero-cost for years. Nothing about that changed yesterday.

I agree, this is rather alarmist, but I also agree with the blog post that this is the direction Apple seems to be going (slowly). Luckily, I'm a Linux user too, but I'm betting the majority of OSX users aren't ready for that switch.

That's assuming the majority of OS X users are currently Super-Users. :) I don't know if they are or not, but it would be interesting to somehow find out. I bet at one time they were, but when you see that 80% of incoming freshman to US Universities have Macbooks, I think it is no longer the case.