The key takeaway for me was he bought a $300 microphone and is acting indignant that he has full access to his own hardware via — gasp — a command shell.

Do we live in a bizarro world now where we expect — no, demand — our hardware be locked down?

It's worth mentioning all USB mics are toys anyway. Analog interfaces have gone away — artificially so — now they cram them into the device.

All mics are analog.