1- I doubt anyone at Apple intended the orange dot to be broadcast to everyone watching their television during a live musical performance on SNL with visuals in the background. It is not possible for the performance to be recording any of the viewers, so there's no possible "dipshit" to be protected from.
2- The dot appears on secondary displays running full screen video: there is no menu bar to crop off. You can only crop off part of the visuals, or your visuals have to be lower resolution to produce artificial dead area to crop.
3- Apple has never given any indication that they intend to add indicators that someone else is being recorded by my computer. The indicators are for the computer owner, to indicate that software may be recording the owner without their knowledge. The parties are all different than you're supposing.
2 - The dot essentially forces a bar. It's not an overlay on the application's graphics. This is what is shown in the images. So there is something to crop off.
Not to mention, if it is known, it can be planned around. This is exactly what television has been doing for years. There are scan lines that don't get shown on screens despite being broadcast.
3 - This is almost as disingenuous as the article. The dot is there to inform the user of the device/screen that they could be recorded. The audience during a performance would qualify as a user in this case. It's basically an indicator saying, "if you can see this, it's possible the device showing this is recording your audio". That is completely relevant for an audience. If you think it's not, then why is it relevant for anyone else. There are thousands of excuses one can use to justify hiding this information from anybody. Once you are potentially violating my privacy, it is relevant to me.
I promise you that the people who do those visuals for SNL (and every other wacky scenario people are coming up with) are not mirroring or extending their desktops. They're using dedicated video hardware for this exact reason.
2- The dot appears on secondary displays running full screen video: there is no menu bar to crop off. You can only crop off part of the visuals, or your visuals have to be lower resolution to produce artificial dead area to crop.
3- Apple has never given any indication that they intend to add indicators that someone else is being recorded by my computer. The indicators are for the computer owner, to indicate that software may be recording the owner without their knowledge. The parties are all different than you're supposing.