Even if google were to shutter this in 5 years, there's not _that_ high of a cost to switching. In the end, it's just your files. You can move them.
I'm more concerned with whether their software is any good. I tried it a while ago and it didn't even come to close to dropbox even in terms of syncing, let alone the other things that dropbox has done.
Yeah, it's definitely true that a large percentage of people who "know" javascript have about that much knowledge. But still, if you look at absolute numbers of people who can make a function and write a for loop in JS, it's still going to dwarf the number of people who can loop and write a defun in elisp.
I mostly agree with that although I think it's also kind of irrelevant in a practical sense because many programmers already have to know javascript for their work so you get a lot more people who can contribute right away.
Aside from that -- lisp or javascript as the extension language, I'd love to see a brand-new extensible editor like emacs just to have a shot at changing terminology and some of the APIs. Emacs terminology is a little off-putting because it was invented before the GUIs were widely adopted so it doesn't map that well. I also find some of the APIs a bit weird, but that could just be me.
I think the concern is more with working class people who have always lived in San Francisco and could now get displaced, not with how much it costs for tech workers to live there.