II2II, porter, in a minor way paws:
Chill. It is not that important. For those of you who think it's stupid, it won't sell if it's stupid, and it'll die out. For those of you who think it's brilliant, it'll sell well if it is, and help people out.
Either it helps people or it dies out. There's no third option. Sure, someone could buy it then find out it's useless, but this would be fairly minor since 1. It's $12, not a huge investment even for subsistence farmers, and 2. They'll spread the word of it being useless and keep the total harm down close to zero.
Personally, I think that it's a great idea, but for kids in developed countries (note: I am NOT saying it should be barred to people in developing countries.) A modern, cheap Apple II would get lots of parents to buy them for their kids, and the kids would grow up not just learning about computers, but also having at least a basic understanding of how to program the computers (pardon the pun.) Kids now are growing up with the computers being just a glorified cell phone or game system, with none of the experience of actual creation that programming, even in BASIC, brings.
EDIT: Augh, somehow missed the "Not an Apple II" thing. Wish it was.