I have to pay to load applications I wrote myself on my own device?
This is even more ridiculous than just locking down the platform. This is a slap in the face. Good thing WP7 is failing to reach the mass market so far. I seriously hope it stays that way.
It's even worse like this. What they are doing is essentially making an undesirable situtation, then capitializing on that by offering you a slightly less shitty solution (which is still far from reasonable):
"Hey, you could buy a $100/y dev account, but we're so incredibly generous that we'll allow you to run a few programs at a premium of $10!"
They are charging for something that should be one of the most essential freedoms of a computing device. This is insane, no matter how you try to sugar-coat and excuse it.
Will we reach the point where smartphone (or smartphone like devices in the future) are considered computers and we can use them freely? I hope so. It might happen. It might not. What we can count on is there will always be the choice on the market for those who require that choice. Not everyone does. I have a Windows Phone. I've never been bothered by not being able to install my own software. I also have an HP Touchpad with Android and WebOS, the two freest OSes on the market right now. Never sideloaded. I don't need to.
My point? Your outrage is misplaced, for several reasons listed above. People often talk about consumer choice, but the rubber meets the road when consumers willingly make an informed decision (in my case) that the crowd doesn't understand. I bought a Palm Pre not because of the freedom, but because of the UX. I bought a Windows Phone for the same reason. Sometimes a smartphone is just a smartphone. You might not understand my choice, but I do and that's what counts in the end.
Citing examples like feature phones and gaming consoles isn't helpful, either. Just because nobody complained in the past doesn't make it okay. Also, as the quite active homebrew scene around most consoles proves, there is value in being able to run your own stuff on gaming consoles. You might remember the deep shit that Sony got themselves into when they decided to turn off OtherOS on the PS3 for no reason whatsoever.
Anyways, I think consoles - while owning quite a few myself - are a thing of the past. They're eventually going to die. The coming next generation might be the last we see.
(Well, except Windows making installing VS and the Zune software almost impossible, but that's just what happens with Windows. On a clean install. After installing all the updates it wanted. Of which half failed the first time. And rebooting. And rebooting again. But none of that is related to Windows Phone, except that as Apple doesn't make tools for their competitors OSes, Microsoft doesn't either.)
Hopefully my original post inspires someone to try this with all the platforms. I'm particularly aware of the requirements to create accounts and registrations, the size of downloads, how limited your choice of host environments is etc.
The next fun step is how do you get your hello world onto a friend's device without using a cable or requiring them to be in your presence.