Sorry for the long post
You only need a keyboard for editing documents, programming, image retouching.
You only need a big monitor for some things, entertainment is just fine on small screens and TVs.
Desktops are less relevant to most people.
OSes are less relevant, as DOS was back in the days.
Only apps count. Some would say only data(and money, still).
I think MS knows that windows lost the war, some say that it will be free in the future. They delay making windows free not to look like losers.
Win10(and 7) are not sold for a reason, they are rented(like phone/web apps), so they can collect your data and sell it to governments, advertising, etc.
In the long term, Linux(and alternatives) has a chance because it's honest and community(not money) based.
Delphi is being hit from all sides(death of the desktop, mobile jungle, web based enterprise, IoT/automation, AI, big data).
Combine this with bad management that can't pay the developers and are afraid to have something cheaper, not to lose revenue and/or "face".
Nobody buys a company without wanting to make a profit or at least minimize loses.
Lazarus, while small and apparently weak compared to the big Delphi, can survive and reinvent itself.
It's fast, easy to learn, easy to understand, powerful enough when necessary, cross-platform, ideal for IoT/automation and Desktop apps.
Lazarus and FPC are more in competition with Rust.
Go is another competitor to Node.js, TypeScript, all other web/enterprise platforms, and possibly Lazarus/FPC in the future.
We need to learn from Go's simplicity, Rust's "safe C" idea, Node's async/flexibility/npm(including native C/C++ modules feature)/fast prototyping.
And then MS created TypeScript and VS Code became open-source and cross-platform(Win/OSX/Linux).
Does this mean that open-source won ? Win/desktop failed ? It's all IoT/cloud/AI/big-data/web/progressive apps ? All of them ?
I always liked Delphi and Lazarus. Tried to keep Delphi alive in all the companies I worked for.
Delphi/Pascal always had a stamp of being outdated, etc., but products/actions speak more than words, services/support are more important, at least long-term.
They wanted to use C++ where performance was required, Java or C# to more easily find developers.
In the end they just needed developers so badly that even I had to agree that C# had to enter the scene.
Was C# better ? No, not really.
Did they find more developers ? Yes, many more.
Were the developers more skilled ? No, because it requires passion.
Are they paying smaller salaries ? C# developers earned more in the same company doing less.
Are C# developers less likely to leave if you pay them more ? No, they will find jobs easily and always earn more every time they switch or negotiate.
That company is still using Delphi(latest release), C# and Adobe AIR/HaXe(UI effects team) and some web stuff. Doing great financially even after losing a big contract(business not tech reasons), they earn even more now.
I'm doing Node.js nowadays, had to face reality and chose the least evil/most promising solution when the opportunity presented itself.
The company I work for heavily supported Delphi, which was great, but the economy is not great, so probably no more Delphi in the future.
Most Delphi developers I know want to do C#, just to avoid the mental job hunting pressure.
Delphi's problem is not only the IDE pricing, but also the chicken/egg problem, few jobs means few employees, fewer students learn it in school(if any).
In the end Delphi is heavily dependent on Windows and since that is less relevant, so is Delphi. Combine that with high prices, few jobs, few employees, web, progressive apps vs native, IoT, big-data, AI, cloud and you have a bad recipe for the future.
Community Edition seems like a desperate move, just like TypeScript, VS Code(which I use and it's quite nice/fresh), it's the silence before the storm.
Delphi CE might be useful for learning how they did certain things, but long term they are alienating their existing paying users and risk losing the mobile market because it's like quicksand.
If I learned anything from working with Node.js is that you need to adapt fast or die. It's the most innovative, and the most volatile technology I have ever seen, but the beauty of JS is that it can keep up with this pace. This is in direct contrast with Delphi/Lazarus and Windows, where I was used to using the same library/techniques for many years without stress.
And to those who think WebAssembly has any chance to displace JS, think again, ASM.js existed for many years, there are JS cross-compilers, WebAssembly is nothing special or new or faster ...
"If something can be written in JS, it will be written in JS". Let's be honest, a lot of stuff can be and is written in JS.
You need something better than JS, with all of it's flexibility, strength, ubiquity and near-native(C) performance.
Not even Rust or Go can yet replace it and those are much better funded and managed, compared to Delphi.
Python tried to get into niche fields like AI/machine learning/computer vision, but long term even it might get displaced by more popular technology or things like R.
Some will say that it's apples to oranges, the problem is that people don't like apples anymore(not just because the fruit "betrayed" Steve), people simply want oranges and even lemons with a bit of honey.
One thing both Delphi and Lazarus need is something like NPM, with a smarter global management of versions, to avoid duplication. Better see Rhyan Dahl's most recent videos about his regrets and future of Node, NPM(and Yarn) itself might become obsolete.
Hope Lazarus will be doing good in the future, it has so much potential and now there's even the IoT marked that seems a really good match for it.
While I don't want Delphi to die, for some reason it keeps making bad choices and it's managers lack intuition(Bill said he wished he had Steve's intuition), it's always late to the party, always losing energy in different directions.