I have always argued that Rosetta 2 should be maintained long-term, rather than being sunsetted like Rosetta 1. The two situations are fundamentally different. When Apple dropped Rosetta 1, PowerPC was already dead in the broader consumer market. Once the Mac transition was complete, there was no longer a commercial incentive for PPC development outside of isolated embedded systems, which had absolutely no overlap with desktop users anyway. Killing Rosetta 1 was simply cleaning house.
Rosetta 2 bridges a completely different reality. The x86/64 architecture continues to dominate the commercial computing space. Millions of Intel and AMD systems are still designed, built, and shipped every year. Because this massive, active market exists, there is a constant stream of new x86 software being developed globally. This is especially true in enterprise environments, specialized professional tools, and the entire PC gaming ecosystem.
There is an enormous library of code out there that could still be leveraged on the Mac. By setting a hard expiration date on Rosetta 2, Apple is choosing to burn a highly functional bridge to the largest active software pool in the world. While forcing developers to adopt ARM natively makes sense for Apple's hardware philosophy, abandoning the ongoing reality of x86 feels like an unnecessary limitation that ultimately hurts the end user.
If Apple no longer wants to bear the engineering and security burdens of maintaining the translation layer natively in future macOS releases, there is a clear opportunity for a commercial alternative. I would be more than happy to pay for an annual license for Rosetta 2 directly from Apple or a blessed third-party developer to continue this support. Monetizing it as an optional, premium add-on would justify the upkeep costs while preserving access to critical x86 software for the users who truly need it.
