This issue was due to Apple's system for checking for expired developer certificates and for malware. Their OCSP server failed, among other things, which is why some apps couldn't launch.
I use mostly free/open source software for web development on macOS; the outage didn't affect me at all.
Your anecdotal survivorship story was, indeed, rather unhelpful when I had previously linked news articles discussing the widespread loss of productivity associated with this concern.
Apple has a great incentive to continue allowing general computing: a significant portion of their users will stop buying their computers if they do this.
Almost every developer I know will stop using macs if macs start actually preventing them from running whatever software they want.
The more closed it gets, the more customers they will lose. Right now macs aren't closed at all, so honestly the customers they've lost so far (yourself included) are... faint-of-heart? Excessively sensitive? Not sure what the best way to phrase this is. You've effectively stopped buying macs for something that could happen, not something that has actually happened. I would find it incredibly surprising if you install enough unsigned GUI apps for that whole warning + have-to-open-it-with-right-clicking thing to be a dealbreaker for you on its own. And if it was, they could've lost you at any time because that seems like incredibly fickle consumer behavior.
An actual closing of the platform though will be a watershed moment.
Yes, I'm agreeing that Apple will/is driving away discriminating customers.
Apple is well aware that most of its recent customer growth, and almost all its future customer growth, is in iOS and similar walled gardens.
The Mac users are proving to happily accept greater restrictions on ability so long as their preferred tools continue to work. You state as much yourself: running unsigned software is surprising to you; as though that should be considered abnormal behaviour. Consumers of Mac products will happily accept greater restrictions if they can be convinced it brings quality; whether or not it is successful in doing so.
Apple can't just increase market share in the PC market, they have to do it with a walled garden? Pretty cool that you know where future growth is gonna come from before it happens.
Again, and for the final time, there has not been any restriction on ability. You can still run the things you've always been able to run. You just have to go through a warning first. That is not a restriction on ability. You know Windows does similar now, right?
Running unsigned software is not surprising to me at all. Running so much unsigned GUI software that it becomes restrictively annoying... is absolutely surprisingly. I guarantee you I run a lot more unsigned GUI apps than the vast majority of users, and it's still such a minor inconvenience I barely notice.
I didn't say they _have_ to use a walled garden; I'm claiming that they know how lucrative that approach is and how submissive their consumer base is, and so are likely to choose that path to pad their revenue.
It's not even a particularly bold prediction; it is completely in-line with their whole product tragectory.
You will accept OSX turning into iOS, and call it innovative, powerful and unburdened; because that's what Apple will call it.
