My suspicion is that we won't see Apple go completely down this road, because it would kill an entire market for their computers that currently helps them sell systems, and that's those of us who are developers that like the experience of the OS for development.
Let's say Apple does go down the path this article lays out. It would kill the machine in the science community, b/c no unsigned programs? No, Apple needs to encourage that, for the brand. "Most powerful machine, the M1, best for scientific computing", would they want to kill that brand?
If we do assume that Apple goes down that path, then it would definitely kill the platform for developers, scientific computing, school. I might even stop recommending it to family, which I currently do (b/c it lowers the instances of people calling me for help). I don't think they'll go down that path.