So, MT3 is out there. For very light users (1 author and 3 blogs), it's free. For everyone else, it's now pay software. Six Apart's rationale is here.
Not surprisingly, the internet first reacters are howling with the predictable outrage at actually having to pay for something. Others are pointing out significant problems with the pay structure more thoughtfully.
Personally, I'm not terribly shocked by any of this yet, but I'll be watching the fall-out with interest. And yes, I'll probably be paying.
(It's worth noting that at least one man predicted some protesting, even if he didn't mention price.)
With all due respect, I think you're misreading the outrage. Yes there are those who will never pay anything no matter what. But most of the posts I've seen on the subject today take issue with the cost of the licenses (don't confuse this, though, with there being a cost at all -- which, in my take, isn't really the issue amongst most), and the timing of the release of the license/pricing scheme.
Had they waited till MT3 Gold was out and had a stable of plugins ready for downloading, maybe it wouldn't seem so overpriced. But as it stands, they have (at best) a feature-bare release, coupled with pricing that simply puts them out of the range of all but the wealthiest hobby bloggers.
I've donated to them in the past, and I felt good about it. I would have been the first in line for MT Pro. I can't however justify spending $100 on my 2 author personal website that already costs us money to run (in hosting costs). TypePad is a cheaper alternative, and TypePad actually has more features!
To be honest, I may will be misreading some of the outrage - but I'm sure there's a proportion of it that's knee-jerk reaction to the idea of paying for something. Certainly, if you look at the earliest responses to the 6A announcement, there's no argument or rationale other than "They've gone pay. No fair."
In my own defence, I did link to at least some more reasoned responses, outlining why there was a problem, and would readily agree that 6A would probably do themselves a favour by looking at the problems raised and tweaking the licenses to match.
As for Typepad - I wonder if that isn't the point? Maybe they would prefer to move weblogs like yours over to Typepad and have priced things accordingly?
It's certainly possible they're trying to push people to TypePad, though I have no interest in doing so. I don't think it's a very good strategy in the long run to piss people off but hope that it will push them to use one of your other, cheaper products.
tima makes a very interesting observation ( http://www.timaoutloud.org/archives/000349.html ), that I wished to repeat here: "TypePad is for general users wanting to blog and Movable Type is for developers and professional organizations wanting to do more then just weblogging." In a manner of sorts, I think he's right.
I think that they're definitely drawing the line between people who just want a blog and people who want to build something better. As a long-time Perl developer, I host my three, single-author blogs at TypePad -- because I simply do not have the time to apply security fixes, bug patches, point-release upgrades, and error diagnostics.
What I realized from the year that I ran MT was that it was cheaper for me to pay TypePad their few bucks a month than it was for me to try and develop my own blogging platform. Since I'm in this to blog, not to develop, it makes perfect sense for me to switch to TypePad.
Several peers are developing websites that are driven by but no longer resemble MT, integrating complex functionality from multiple sources into cool things that only vaguely resemble their MT heritage. I'm not sure I mind seeing them charged for their use of the platform; by not embedding strong piracy checks into the code, they've at least left the back door open for developers.
I think you're spot on, and the talk of allowing people to sell hosted Movable Type products suggests that they're expecting an intermediate step to be filled by third parties.