That's a pretty bad analogy in any case: it's like you deliberately bought a house from Apple without being able to install any additional appliances, but they will sell you more appliances, most of which made by third parties, most of which are totally unnecessary and destined to be thrown away after a day or two, but all of which have hidden cameras in them. You can install appliances Apple doesn't sell you, but then Apple will refuse to support the appliances you already have in your house, the house itself, or your lawn chair.
sorry, my example wasn't meant to mirror too much the AppStore. I was only using the Apple names as satire. My point is to show what can happen when products are sold as services and/or when a product or service can be controlled after the initial transaction.
I have no hatred of Apple. I am a fan of their products and use them daily. I think they are doing pretty much what any other company in its position would do. If society doesn't want this sort of behavior, we have to regulate against it. That's how we control the boundaries of what companies can do.
I think this case of Apple/ATT/Google is a good battleground for fleshing out these issues before for example, the nature of things like books changes drastically. Apple isn't the only one testing these boundaries. We've seen the music companies try. Now we're seeing inroads in Books. What happens when every product becomes a service? What happens when every product must be extended through the same provider that you made the initial transaction?
