Designers, developers and gamers have always been the opinion leaders in personal computing. Apple showed they could maintain and resurrect their business by keeping their appeal with designers and making an attractive platform for developers. Gamers always stuck with Windows or consoles.
Abandoning designers and developers means gradual erosion of your position as leading personal computing platform; the opinion leaders are no longer on your side telling everyone how great your products are.
Now this might be a really smart strategy when you factor in mobile and cloud computings impact on personal computing. Hard to say how that will play out. My guess is it's a big mistake to leave designers and developers behind, especially as we enter the era of VR content creation.
I think you're significantly overestimating the degree to which people will follow recommendations that are explained by complaining about features they didn't even know existed, even if they are much less informed than the one giving the advice.
When friends ask me "What laptop should I get?" I don't tell them about the differences between various versions of Visual Studio or why I prefer Windows 7 or 10 over 8.
They don't. They look around for somebody with an informed opinion and ask "Hey, I'm switching my computer, what do you think I should buy", go with the answer.
And, of course, they'll trust the answer much more if it's the same thing the expert is using.
Abandoning designers and developers means gradual erosion of your position as leading personal computing platform; the opinion leaders are no longer on your side telling everyone how great your products are.
Now this might be a really smart strategy when you factor in mobile and cloud computings impact on personal computing. Hard to say how that will play out. My guess is it's a big mistake to leave designers and developers behind, especially as we enter the era of VR content creation.