No point to do that. Arduino the platform should remain widely popular among hobbyists; this makes it an easy choice when they have to produce something more professional.

But professionals have different requirements, and are willing to pay for tools that work well. Opening up a professional channel only makes sense if it's buttressed by a large ecosystem outside, with the pressure to keep using Arduino, because it's well-known, hardware is tried and true, hiring is easy, etc.

So, if anything, Arduino the company now has more incentives to make Arduino widely accessible among kids, students, hobbyists, etc.

So basically in the future they're going to focus more on competing with Particle. Development of hobbyist stuff will eventually stop. Because: VCs.

Got it.

Well, yeah, IMO, that's what the buzzwords imply. And I'm preparing for the end of it.

But keep in mind that people that talk in buzzwords are often not reliable.

no they won't... the money is used to develop our Professional products for enterprise customers.. the classic arduino will always be free. We've never build anything that would use licensing servers etc... BTW Arduino is headquartered in Switzerland/Italy/Sweden/USA so... no UK there

Of course Arduino will be free, with optional/required registration. You will start by selling cheap labor leads to your professional customers. "Hot Arduino programmers in your area are waiting to meet you".