I’m assuming that they’re going to (fairly) lock AI generative features behind the subscription since they’ll be incurring ongoing costs.

They'll be pressured by gdocs and other similar products to not keep too much of this behind a paywall. I already don't know anyone who loves using Pages (every time I share a document I have to export it to .docx, which is annoying), so they're already starting off behind by a bit.

I think many more would be on to Pages if they realized it was more than a simple WP. It's especially great for personal use, where there's no non-Mac sharing needed — there's no simpler layout program out there, & the typographic options are nice to have. If I have something longer/more detailed to put together, that's what ()LaTeX, Inkscape, etc., is for. We need alternate app ecosystems out there, & it's nice that Apple hasn't left these apps to rot like they did back in the 2010s.

It's OK but way too limited for proper layouts and doesn't have enough features for long/complex documents like books.

As it is, it's barely better than GDocs but less convenient, and since people rarely need to print stuff, layout isn't that important.

What do you recommend for long/complex documents like books?

Well, that's a very hard question to answer without additional details.

If it's graphics/presentation heavy, you most likely will need something like InDesign. If there is a lot of math, you'll need something like Latex (typist). If there are a lot of tables, you probably need something like Word to auto-update embeds from Excel. In general, Word will allow you to control features like footnotes/endnotes, tables of figures, etc, much better than Pages ever will.

If it's mostly literature, you can use something like Vellum (https://vellum.pub/)

I don't have a list of solutions ready, but maybe I should make one. This is a complex problem, and the safe answer is usually to just use Word.

The problem with Pages is that it is extremely mediocre at everything while still locking you down to Apple hardware.

The young, foolish version of myself was a rabid Apple fanboy and pushed people to use Pages (back in the day when the iWork suite was paid but cheaper). Then people came back to me with problems that could be solved in Word relatively easily, but I had no answer for with Pages.

After being tired of saying, "no you can't do that" or "that has to be done manually," I stopped advocating for Pages.

I don't do much document preparation nowadays, but I think the ideal solution would be a GUI to bridge between web publishing and paper publishing.

I really enjoy Pages, but if they’re going to lock stuff behind a paywall — it might be time to look at other things. I can’t afford to add a whole bunch of new subscriptions.