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Sure Apple customers have more money, but hopefully when you buy your next gadget the old one could be sold or donated to someone less wealthy.

The possible bad future I can see is this

- judge decides Apple can do whatever they want

- Google says "Great, then we can do the same" and all Android phones get locked

- Microsoft then also says thinks "Fuck, we are suckers, so they force the PC makers to DRM the computers to run only Windows and say something like "if you don't like it buy Linux"

So we will have tons of hardware that is DRMed and locked, you can run only what american companies approved and only if you have a valid user or developer accounts and maybe you need internet connection so the files are checked before you are allowed to open them.




That's a real possibility, and part of the greater tradeoff that happens with most technolgies: as they grow more powerful society applies more controls to them to prevent their ill use. Drunken horse riding is less regulated than drunken driving is less regulated than drunken nuclear submarine driving.

Happily, there's already a thriving ecosystem of alternate linux-based platforms that allow the sort of freedom that we both want and enjoy.




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