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I have seen the future and I am opposed

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Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#31
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we discard our clothes harden ourselves for the weather to become less dependent on clothing manufacturers? Technology is what separates humans from the rest of the animals. As time goes by, we will become more and more dependent on our technology, and this is a good thing , because I with my smartphone or laptop can do things I wouldn't be able to do alone.

Clothes don't crash spontaneously...

Incorrect. I periodically have clothing fail. Typically, of course, I throw away crashed clothing, rather than rebooting it. :)

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#32
Oh dear. Don Norman has discovered why free software is about freedom and what the cloud business model is really about.

"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."[1]

He dismisses GNU/Linux right off the bat, even though the very reason why GNU was even born[2] is the very same problem he is starting to admit (given where he worked, I think he saw this ...but now that he no longer seem to profit from it enough to even get his blackberry roaming payed for him by The Company Overlord -- welcome to the reality of the majority).

Just visit http://www.debian.org/ and download http://www.libreoffice.org/ and do something about it, instead of musing and whining (I am awaiting a functionality he would need that is missing).

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.compu...

[2] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#33
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we discard our clothes harden ourselves for the weather to become less dependent on clothing manufacturers? Technology is what separates humans from the rest of the animals. As time goes by, we will become more and more dependent on our technology, and this is a good thing , because I with my smartphone or laptop can do things I wouldn't be able to do alone.

Clothes don't crash spontaneously...

Janet Jackson may disagree

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#34
It's an interesting post. A few points:

> But what I see developing seems driven by greed and profit...

Yes, it's called "capitalism".

> For me, the future would bring forth solutions to our needs and wants...

Check.

> design that provides value in a sustainable and responsible manner...

"Sustainable" is an extremely loaded term. Basically, you get it when the market demands it. If you see it as important, it's not a failure of the producers: it's a failure of the consumers to demand or the governments to require it.

The rest of the post talks about nascent issues of balkanization, which is the natural path of progression. Consider the examples of railroads in the US and the road system in the UK. In both cases, they were initially private endeavours that were likewise driven by "greed and profit". Arguably in both cases the high pricing stifled innovation and in both cases, the systems were eventually nationalized.

In the UK's example, nationalization fostered trade (the roads were all toll roads previously). In the case of the US railroads, nationalization can arguably be seen as a disaster so there are mixed results of this.

Ultimately though the story is one of commoditization. We are still in the pioneering days of these technologies and as time goes on they will get cheaper and ubiquitous to the point where people through the instrument of governments will start to see such services as basic rights, much as is becoming the case with Internet access, which many countries are starting to see as the "fourth utility".

"Greed and profit" propelled us from an a hunter-gatherer and agrarian existence to manned spaceflight and the global Internet. Don't be quick to dismiss or disparage "greed and profit" as there has been no greater catalyst for human advancement.

As for his talk of "open standards", I refer you to Dave McClure's "Open is for Losers" [1]. We may find open desirable philosophically but it is not the natural product of a market--at least not an immature market. Open standards are the byproduct of commoditization.

As for synchronous Internet connections:

> Why would it harm companies to provide equal access?

The predominant form of broadband access in many countries is ADSL. The "A" is asynchronous in this case. ADSL2+ is up to 24M down and 1M up (2M with Annex M). Gain more upload speed and you lose download speed. So this isn't an artificial restriction: it's giving consumers what they most likely want. You can buy SDSL links. They have lower (relative) download speeds and generally higher cost, mostly because they're a business product as a general rule.

> I fear the Internet is doomed to fail, to be replaced by tightly controlled gardens of exclusivity.

I don't. I see such walled gardens as merely transitional. The "greed and profit" that drives them pulls us all forward and makes a bucketload of money for a few in the process. For a time.

> Today it is too easy for unknown entities to penetrate into private homes and businesses, stealing identities and corporate secrets.

Not really. If you run a Windows machine directly on the Internet (ie not via a router that does NAT, etc) then you kinda get what you deserve.

The fact is, the closed devices the OP bemoans are actually much safer for such things and that's almost by definition because as soon as you get a complicated mess like Windows, faults are inevitable.

TL:DR the sky isn't falling.

[1]: http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/19/dave-mcclure-open-is-for-l...

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#35
I agree with many of Norman's concerns.

To the extent that connectivity and access are increasingly becoming essential to a modern way of life, commerce, education, etc. and considering the clear direction towards consolidation, oligopolization etc., ISP/cable/wireless providers increasingly look like natural monopolies. Somewhere on the spectrum of a public national highway system, public utilities, or a regulated broadcast and telecom systems, probably more towards the latter.

There are lots of good reasons for being concerned, and historical lessons abound.

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#36
post #8

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. 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 ul…

From looking at your examples for disrupted companies, they are mostly disruped by the internet, which was a huge technological change.

Yes , we live in time of rapid technological change , but how soon do you see an internet level change affecting the industry ? and aren't today's companies more aware of the innovator's dillema and can handle disruptive change somewhat better(microsoft has done quite a good job at this)?

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#37

Does it strike any one else as at least a _bit_ disturbing that he thinks his "mind" is in his smart phone, and finds no problem with this other than that service providers are greedy? An obvious way to avoid becoming beholden to service providers is to retain some independence from our devices. It's not like people didn't travel before the invention of the iPhone.

It's a perfectly reasonable thesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Mind). Do you have any objection beside some transitory subjective distaste?

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#38

This piece is short on big-picture thinking. None of its complaints hold up under scrutiny. Mobile internet access while traveling abroad is expensive and unreliable because it's new . Yes, there are commercial forces that try to maintain high prices as long as possible, but short-term profits never hold up forever. Fifty years ago, every phone bill in the US was payable to AT&T, and long distance calls could cost do…

In Portugal he could have gone to any newsagent (there are still 1,000´s) got a SIM card and have access to the internet for a euro a day.
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