I'd say so. Among many other reasons, Apple made a comeback because they made it easy, and free, to develop for the Mac. Unlike Microsoft who required some hefty developer fees.<p>Now Apple has not only gone back to the pay-to-develop model, but they've also gone the way of the consoles: you only get to distribute what we say you can.<p>I think people are greatly underestimating the effect this will have on development. Ironically, it may have less effect on developers of small programs than large. Why would a company spend a large amount of money developing a complex application if they were not guaranteed that they could even sell the final product?<p>This has already happened to Google with the Google Voice app, although I imagine they have enough money to not be affected too much. There is no defence at all for this sort of system. The app store can easily co-exist in conjunction with "unverified" apps. Hell, Apple could even say "well, first uninstall any unverified apps, then come back for support."<p>I've never been one to harp on about software freedom, but this is too much, and you are damn right I'm scared of it. I'm scared that the public will gleefully jump on this product and set a precedent of extremely closed platforms.