Errrr... Ok. And what other platform doesn't do that? Microsoft is hardly unique here. And ultimately what choices do you really have (especially for desktop/device/platform development)? Any platform short of Web is a walled garden. MS, Google, Apple, where else do you turn for platform content? All these vendors are vying for developers to 'sell' their platforms that will make them money through services and other offerings. Clearly that's the business model now.
The Web has more choices and has pretty much completely opened up to the point that you can build without reliance on any 'platform' vendor and that's good, but it's also completely destroyed the revenue model for developers building tools and components on the platform. If it isn't open source or free no-one considers buying anything anymore. Not sure if this is a good thing as we see so many half baked solutions out there that are not documented, supported and often don't work or get enhanced after the initial effort was expended. Supporting a platform or tool takes effort that nobody wants to expend (especially on smaller OS projcets) when there's no payback.
For me personally I rather pay a reasonable amount of money for a tool/platform/service and get a responsible infrastructure that goes with it and supports it than picking up small pieces and piecing it all together by myself with trial and error. Today with Web apps there's so much stuff out there but so much of it is utter crap that works half way and needs tweaking etc. You CAN do that and that's certainly great but the amount of time that gets wasted in that process often is enormous (at least it is for me). In a truly competitive marketplace a lot of these 'solutions' would be driven out almost immediately.
The expectation of free is terrible for our business IMHO.
FWIW, I'm not disagreeing with you on the idea of big companies trying to maneuver themselves into a position of power - that much is clear. I'm just saying that currently at least there are not many alternatives. I think we're headed into a place where HTML/JavaScript or some derivative thereof will eventually become the platform that drives all other platforms but I think we're still a ways off before that becomes a reality... Heck, I'm building a custom mobile UI HTML application at the moment that is complex custom visual UI and it's such a pain in the ass to make it work across even the latest 'modern' device browsers. It feels like we have a LOOOOONG way to go actually :-)
+++ Rick ---
>>>If you read between the lines of this screed it is clear the only news is choices will become limited for free version users of Visual Studio
>
>For me, the issue isn't whether a developer should pay a one time cost for a fancy compiler and IDE- of course that's a legitimate cost.
>As I see it, MS is doing everything it can to get people use its app plaftorm so that it can generate recurring revenue there.
>That irks me.
>I balk at the notion of having MS, Apple, Amazon, or anyone else involved everytime I publish an application for a client.
>It's odious to me and I can't see how something that noxious will stand up over time.
>Technically, it makes no sense to add non productive layers to a process, and that's what's going on here.
>Compuserve, AOL, Yahoo etc were in that position for quite a while and eventually technology blew them away.
>I assume that someone will figure a better way to get content to mobile devices and that will be a key turning point for developers,
