Is this the end of the Mac?

The inimitable Jason Snell:

Now comes the news that things may be getting worse, not better. 9to5Mac reports that macOS Sequoia beta has introduced a new prompt that doesn’t allow a user to permanently grant permission, but requires an occasional re-authorization.

It’s part of a general trend for Apple to continue placing barriers in the way of users who are trying to use software on the Mac.

I’m just hoping… hoping that Apple realises they’ve made a f*ck up here and gets the balance right. I cannot help but feel that this is perhaps the quickening of the daft conspiracy theory that people had when Gatekeeper came to town in the first place - it’s heading towards an iOS-style App Store where the Apple Tax is in full force. Personally, I don’t think so, but I can see why people might think that. The evidence doesn’t look good.

Asking for permission a second time is not unreasonable for the reasons I mentioned above. But at some point the user must be in charge.

I’m not convinced on this point. People will get pop-up fatigue and just click through. It’s at this point when it becomes less safe, not more safe. Ask once, and only once.

Obviously, for those people that don’t like all this, you can just disable Gatekeeper. Will you still be able to do that?

For me, Apple has made some great strides bringing some features from iOS to the Mac. However, some of the more childish sh*t that is in iOS is now in the Mac too. If Apple continues down this foolish path, it could be that it’s time to re-look at Linux. Windows I haven’t used in years, but people complain it has ads in the OS which I find weird as hell. So, Linux is perhaps becoming the only option for those of us that want an adult computer.