I have seen the future and I am opposed
This is a thoughtful piece written by a tech-savvy author who expresses concerns about the idea that we, as tech consumers, will be subject to the greed-driven restraints placed upon the technology we use by various corporate interests.<p>The unstated premise of the piece seems to be that, as technology matures, control over it becomes consolidated in fewer hands, each of whom has a proprietary interest to limit its ultimate use in order to serve its short-term profit interests. Thus, service providers charge high  roaming fees and structure their charges to serve their interests at the expense of consumers while apps that are offered come increasingly within walled gardens where proprietary overlords dictate all terms.<p>I believe this is all true but disagree as to its alleged threat to our future as tech consumers. Human innovation in a free enterprise system tends to take on a force of its own that overwhelms individual corporate interests. If this were not the case, then our current overlords would be Barnes & Noble (for books), Tower Records (for music), Blockbuster Video (for video rentals), Western Union (for instant messaging), IBM (for enterprise computing), and so on. These were yesterday's corporate giants and they each declined in their influence specifically because they failed to anticipate key trends in technology and thus became laggards instead of leaders.<p>Telco service providers, of course, have incredible power and will use that power to further their particular narrow interests if at all possible. This has resulted in a variety of frustrating user experiences. Even here, however, technology will tend to outrun their long-term ability to dictate terms. Those who are old enough will readily remember the outrageous expense, while traveling, of "long distance" charges, of the scarcity of reliable phone systems in many countries, and of the difficulty often incurred while wanting to make a call of trying to find an available phone booth while on the road. We are worlds removed from that old environment today owing to amazing advances in technology, and we as consumers are far better off than before in spite of the hassles, inconveniences, and expenses we experience with our service providers.<p>I resist walled gardens and proprietary traps in the marketplace as much as the next guy but these too do not threaten my choices in the long run. I may or may not like what Apple does but Apple will not control the future any more than the companies listed above. Corporate control in this sense is powerful but ephemeral - absent government restrictions that give it quasi-monopoly status, it lasts only as long as a company serves important needs of consumers. Once that slips, so too does the corporate dominance (over the long term). I may be wrong about this but, given what I have observed over my lifetime, I take a much more relaxed view of it than does the author of this piece.