[IP] Re: Zittrain on The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop It

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
Date: October 16, 2007 1:59:35 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: ip@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   Zittrain on The Future of the Internet -- And  
How to Stop It

I don't get this at all.   What's in an Apple iPod/iPhone/iTouch  
morphs every year.   And if you don't like what Apple does, just  
don't buy Steve's silly fantasy of control.  Buy an N95 or an N800,  
for example.

I'm old enough to remember when Microsoft was the "open" platform,  
while Apple was as closed as it is today - remember the Lisa, which  
didn't even allow third party app developers to compete?  Or Steve's  
assertion that "all software should be $50" because the value was in  
the hardware?

There are scary monopoly control points (that arise due to fiber  
rights-of-way and corruption between the FCC and its corporate  
clients on spectrum).  But the appliances aren't monopolies today,  
and the content vendors and so forth don't want to be limited to  
exclusive deals with wannabe monopolists, especially appliance  
vendors like Steve.

David Farber wrote:
> We have all been saying it. But of course no one remembers
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Tom Gray <tom_gray_grc@yahoo.com>
> Date: October 16, 2007 11:17:40 AM EDT
> To: dave@farber.net, tom_gray_grc@yahoo.com
> Subject: Re: [IP] Zittrain on The Future of the Internet -- And How  
> to Stop It
>
> Prof Farber
>
> Bill Buxton has been saying this in speeches and
> articles for at least 10 years. One of his famous
> quotes is that "Convergence brings Divergence". A
> converged network will bring divergent or specialized
> appliances. This isn't the death of the Internet but
> of the general purpose PC.
>
> Tom Gray
>
> -------------------------------------------


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