This post from John Gruber really hits the key problem with macOS becoming more locked down and even (sometimes) dumbed down, and the balance between the Mac and iPad in Apple’s product line:

But at a certain point, a hammer needs to hammer whatever it strikes, and sometimes, alas, that’s the user’s thumb. That’s the Mac. It’s a Unix workstation that’s friendly enough to be used by the mass market. It is not an appliance intended to prevent any possible malware or scamware from running.

Apple says they don’t want macOS and iPadOS to converge, but it often feels like we’re inching that way.

@manton Gruber needs to tread carefully here or he might get his Apple press access removed.

@manton I have given up reading Gruber regularly but this is a good article. I’m petrified of the dumbing-down that Apple seems intent on delivering.

@manton After many years happy with MacOS, I saw this coming and (along with butterfly keyboards) it's the reason my last two laptops have run Windows 10, and now Linux.

From an article Gruber links to:

A barrage of permissions dialogs rapidly creates dialog fatigue, where the user will agree to anything if it’ll just let them get back to what they were doing.

That sounds an awful lot like Windows Vista.

@canion ‘given up’ is a good phrase - he used to be in the daily diet - these days a weekly snack if still hungry.

@manton +1 macOS has lost all its personality thanks to this continued insistence on making iOS and macOS seem alike!

@royal @manton At least Microsoft were willing to change. I worry that this Apple is too pigheaded to do the same.

@andrew @manton Vista was the first attempt at applying UAC on Windows, so no surprise they got the balance wrong. That improved over time. From what Gruber says, MacOS had the right balance and is now heading the opposite direction.