Apple doesn't care if developing for their platform is a PITA.
The existence of companies like MacStadium filling rooms with Macs just to bend over backwards for inane license terms proves the paid demand is there. Apple could offer to license their OS for use not on Apple hardware — for a fee. They don't. The objection isn't to the price; the objection is that needing to manage physical hardware (as opposed to spinning up VMs like in the article) is a PITA to manage, comparatively. Companies would — and do — pay to not need to deal with that pain, but it would be a lot less painful to not need to get a third party involved / to be able to make use of the infra I have without having to stuff some Macs into a closet and wonder how I'm going to make that redundant.
The existence of companies like MacStadium filling rooms with Macs just to bend over backwards for inane license terms proves the paid demand is there. Apple could offer to license their OS for use not on Apple hardware — for a fee. They don't. The objection isn't to the price; the objection is that needing to manage physical hardware (as opposed to spinning up VMs like in the article) is a PITA to manage, comparatively. Companies would — and do — pay to not need to deal with that pain, but it would be a lot less painful to not need to get a third party involved / to be able to make use of the infra I have without having to stuff some Macs into a closet and wonder how I'm going to make that redundant.