Marco is accusing Apple of having made a critical strategic error. Where are all the people who call him a member of the Apple cult and all that crap? Funny how they disappear when it comes time to talk about what Apple is doing wrong.
To me the tone of the article is that he is worried that Apple is missing chances of further enhancing lock-in to the Apple brand, specifically on the Mac OS desktop platform. The guy re-purchased apps he already had so that he could help with that lock-in. I see the rationale for doing that but when you start throwing free cash on duplicate app purchases to enhance lock-in I don't know what could be more cult-like.
Picking which operating system to use enhances lock in by itself already. I've bought software both inside and outside of the mac app store and since I have that software I'm locked in to the program. If I could move all my applications to the app store I would do it in a heartbeat because it gives me one place to go for updates. Apple is certainly missing out on opportunities, but not only for "locking people in" but also for making their user experience better.
In the article he says he did it for the purposes of convenience. I don't understand why anybody other than apple would be interesting in "helping" with lock-in.
