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 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.
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.
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.
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.
I'd greatly prefer if my freedom coincided with me being alive. "The long term" may or may not allow for that.
Your argument seems to be akin to "History shows that every tyrant who ever existed has died." Yes but if one or more new tyrants has been born for every one that died, what consolation is it? Different corporate overlords isn't the same as no corporate overlords.
The main difference is that each time we go through this cycle it becomes easier to forget that we have overlords, because each one controls less and less.
Go back to the pre-industrial era, and you own essentially nothing unless you're royalty. Move forward into the mid-19th century and the picture has changed - bankers and railroad barons have grown powerful enough to assert some control over governments. By the 20th century you have a whole array of public services(water/phone/gas/electric). And today, the big discussions are mostly over information businesses.
Example: Even though Apple, Amazon and Netflix have done a lot to usurp the nature of retail and media publishing and can be seen as "tyrants" of their respective markets, they've given up control in other ways; you have considerable freedom to publish and distribute products through their services. They still curate, but not extensively. And, on balance, they offer a better profit/consumer value ratio.
The overall picture adds up to something more complicated than "new tyrants, same as the old" - the quest for profit is increasingly causing them to battle each other, as they keep stepping on each other's toes, and that's forcing a kind of competition that was unimaginable in previous eras. It's still imperfect because some elements of the system will occasionally try to take the rest hostage(e.g. banking, recently), but some amazing things are happening regardless - Twitter revolutions, anyone?
I'd greatly prefer if my freedom coincided with me being alive.
Well, a free enterprise system is just that: one in which consumers have choices. The fact that Google dominates search, or that Apple dominates mobile devices, or that Microsoft dominates desktop computing hardly limits my "freedom" in any real sense of that word and, in the meantime, I will gladly use Google over AltaVista, Apple over a Brand X music player, and Microsoft over WordStar for the benefits I derive from those offerings. In other words, I don't have a problem with a company making proprietary offerings if such offerings give me better value than what otherwise exists and, if I don't like them, I don't have to deal with them.
So, I feel I have my freedom today, just as I did years ago when IBM dominated enterprise computing, and that is why I am (as I said above) quite relaxed about the idea that private corporate interests can control and dominate their respective fields of activity. So long as no government entrenches them permanently as monopolies no matter what their virtues, the activities of Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. are entirely consistent with a free system of economic activity.
If you would abolish the idea of market-leading companies in a free enterprise system, what would you replace that with? In other words, how are you using the word "freedom" and "tyrant" in this context? These are genuine questions because, apart from your use of the term "tyrant" for rhetorical effect, I don't understand where you are going with this idea.
> The fact that Google dominates search, or that Apple dominates mobile
> devices, or that Microsoft dominates desktop computing hardly limits my
> "freedom" in any real sense of that word
Is that really the case? If Microsoft specifically tries to prevent competitors
from coming to market through anti-competitive actions, then they are limiting
my 'freedom' in that they are trying to limit the options that I have when I
have a choice to make on which operating system to use, no?
Limiting freedom doesn't apply solely to the freedom to make a choice, it also
applies to limiting the options one has to choose between. When AT&T lobbies
the government to allow them to refuse access to their last-mile lines to
3rd-party ISPs, then AT&T is limiting my freedom b/c now I have fewer choices
in ISPs in my area.
What anti-competitive actions do you refer too? Murder, kidnapping and blackmail are illegal. Price fixing high just leads to higher demand for alternatives. Price fixing low serves the consumer. And Microsoft owns their OS, which is a distribution channel and can exclude any applications they want for any reason (that's their freedom). But, Microsoft can't make you buy anything, all they can do is set a price and pay for the eye-level shelf of their choosen distribution channel.
Freedom means you do what you like with things you own. It does not mean every market should (or will) organize itself so as to maximally benefit you.
As for AT&T: of course. Behind every good monopoly is the government (and then they're protected by law -- and the threats of murder, blackmail and kidnapping for violation).
But I think that one can articulate the problem of abusive monopolies as being narrower than simply companies leading the market.
The distinction between rent-seekers and profit-seekers is rough but it's a little closer to the original complaint. We can define abusive monopolies as companies which have acquired not just a strong position in the market but also a legal or force-based cudgel to drive off all serious competitors. Telcos having a monopoly on civic rights-of-way is an example of this. Companies using software patents to scare-away competitor are another example of this.
One problem in dealing with this situation is that in a fair, "commodity" market, margins tend to become "paper thin". Thus there's a lot of capital out there chasing opportunities to get a choke-hold on one or another markets. I don't have any idea what to do about that.
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)?
I disagree. We're just so jaded by the speed of change that we don't ascribe much significance to changes that have completely changed how human beings interact. While many of these technologies are built on the internet, saying that they're insignificant because of this is kind of like saying the internet is insignificant since it's built on telephony.
Furthermore, it's almost without exception that these technologies have weakened big companies, especially in the software industry. Cheap computing power that you don't even have to manage, a massive ecosystem of open source code, and powerful communication tools are available to anybody now. Big companies rely on economies of scale to offset the costs of organization. It's becoming increasingly difficult for them to win in an industry with almost no barrier to entry.
But all of the infrastructure that those things run on cost money too. The 'cloud' isn't going to eliminate the cost of running fiber. The ISPs/network operators are increasingly going to become the gatekeepers, hell they already are.
I'm not so sure all of the barriers to entry have evaporated. they have just changed.
You can look at netflix , amazon , google and apple and the ISP's. each have a huge competitive barrier : wheter it's huge customer base , big data , big "relationships" , huge brand , huge brain trusts, large manufacturing volume, network effects, large costly infrasturtuce or a very very efficent logistical system. those are things that costs alot of money and are not easy to scale.
And if all that doesn't work , in many cases you can just buy your future disruptor.
"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), IBM (for enterprise computing), and so on."
Amazon operate in every one of those markets, and they dominate in a couple.
I believe that's the point. These companies did not anticipate the direction they would be dragged by technological progress, and other companies have filled the void. I'd really only say Amazon is a valid example for books though, as other companies currently have a larger presence in the rest.
Your points are all well stated and true. I agree with everything you have said.
And yet it is also true that the end-users can have a significant amount of influence in how quickly the marketplace provides more choice and more open solutions. Most immediately they can choose the more open solution instead of the one that provides more of a walled garden (such as selecting android over the iphone). They can, at least in less capital intensive fields, choose to enter themselves and provide a more open solution (as certain Linux providers have done). In the extreme, they can lobby for legislation or regulation to require or at least support openness and choice. While I generally support a very light regulatory touch, there are some rare and extreme cases where it is appropriate.
While everything you say is true, those who wish to resist walled gardens and proprietary traps can choose to do so in an active and conscious way, rather than merely waiting for the inevitable (yet sometimes slow) march of technology to bring this openness.
You make some good points but I think you're underestimating the power a monopoly can have. It's true that IBM wasn't able to keep their strangle hold on technology, but Microsoft did for a long time. Walmart still stands largely unopposed.
Apple allows you to run any software you want on your device. If you want something that isn't in the appstore, then you can have a webapp that works as a native app, that can be downloaded from the web, appear as an app on a page of apps like all the other apps, and operate like an app with access to the sensors of the device. Apple provides a complete platform for development of these apps, completely out of apple's control. If you want a native app, you can get a developer account and install whatever software you want.
Apple does this for two reasons. The first is, giving developers these tools outside of Apple's control, is beneficial to the platform. Apple wants as much developer focus as it can. The second reason, and probably more important, is that by having unrestricted app access, Apple provides the best solution for all of its customers. More apps means happier customers.
The app store doesn't let you make malicious or pornographic apps. The former doesn't benefit anyone, and the latter while a silly restriction is easily circumvented by using the web based platform.
Apple's walled garden is more a marketing slogan of Apple's competitors than anything else. Apple really doesn't care, because what apple does, is focus on the users. (which is why iOS is an open platform.)
No, the parent propagated the dishonest claims about Apple that android fans like to spread, and for pointing out the truth I am downvoted and for attacking me personally, you are upvoted.
Frankly, if your ideas were superior, you wouldn't need to rely on lies and censorship to propagate them.
This tells us everything we need to know about the lack of integrity of the average HN poster.
They can't. And they really are quite liberal in their screening for the most part. But they are trying to provide a good experience for their customers.
But if they can't, then what you said was basically wrong. The app store totally lets you make malicious applications. Seems like security theatre to me.
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).
Recently I keep hearing pundits opine that the "open source" movement hasn't gone anywhere and is basically irrelevant.
IMO that is a great sign that it's a good time to be getting into Free Software. The Affero GPL is probably the only thing that can realize the potential of cloud computing, and keep the cloud bubble from popping and a major swing back to locally hosted IT systems.
PS - Also, I am very glad that "open source" became unfashionable because it made Eric Raymond go away.
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.
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?
No. It is natural and true. Intelligence Augmentation is already there, in the form of the internet and our array of portable computers, which give us access to any information or computation we know how to find or express. We are already some distance to Stross's Manfred Macx (from his novel Accelerando) - lost and slightly bemused when disconnected from our external brain. It's not so obvious yet, and most of us still have some independence, but those of us who know how to use the web are lesser people without access to it.
I don't particularly object to the idea that we hold some of our intelligence in our environment. I think it's true, and actually forms the basis for my objection. What I object to is that we should naively allow that environment to be changed from one which offers manifold possibilities for a full range of embodied engagement (the natural world and man-made things which relate to our bodies in a way which does not significantly restrict our possibilities, e.g. clothes or hand tools) into one which encourages superficial stimulus-response behavior and instant gratification according to pre-fabricated programs.
It sounded to me like Don Norman had already accepted that idea to the point that he didn't even realize it was a choice. He worries about a future of greedy carriers controlling our phone-brains. I worry about the fact that our minds could become so beholden to devices that, regardless of whether those devices are open or privately controlled, we diminish the depth of our experience and our tendencies towards reflective thought.
If drugs were available that increased our abilities but made us less thoughtful, would you accept that without deliberation? Would it really be better if those drugs were easy to make at home or handed out for free rather than sold in stores? This is already happening with Ritalin and "smart drugs". They improve our ability to carry out mental work but diminish our ability to reflect on what we are doing.
"Smart" drugs and phones are only so in terms of instrumental reason, not in terms of creativity or contemplation of ends.
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.
False analogy. There is a big, big difference between clothes that keep you from perishing due to exposure, and your shiny new smart phone. The real problem here is that the author is, apparently, incapable of thought without an array of instant-access resources at his disposal.
The difference, in this case, between clothes and "your shiny new smart phone" is novelty. Since the subject of the article is the future I don't think the analogy was unreasonable.
I still use a map instead of a GPS and an old Sagem (my 810X) phone with prepaid card that last almost one week on battery. Not because of FUD of the (French) FBI tracking me, and not because I can't see all the benefits of using a GPS or a smartphone, but because I feel free this way: I don't have to pay for a smartphone + contract or (exhorbitant) roaming fees and I'm not dependent on batteries. Plus, I still know how to read a map ;-) Guess what, I lived in the French Alps, in Tokyo and now in Paris and I didn't get lost nor did I miss events.
You can know how to read a map and use GPS. I use a GPS, but I still check road signs to make sure it's right, and so I can use my map if the GPS breaks.
In fact, Don Norman is among the world's most qualified to say this kind of thing: he was founding Chair of UC San Diego's Cognitive Science department, where (among other theses) the notion of distributed cognition was developed (during Norman's time as Chair).
Actually, it goes deeper than that. Given the positions he held, it is fair to say, that he has to have manipulative skills: put simply, he is a manipulator.
Manipulators use phones, mails, memo-s etc. as remote control devices. And since manipulators are more often than not weak on substance, they rely on input from outside more than "creators", who have more inherent values to live off from.
I think he just got pissed by being blown out of the water because of his net-blackout.
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 dollars (not cents) per minute. Thirty years ago, we gained multiple long distance carriers and prices fell quickly. Twenty years ago, we cut the cord, but cell phones charged by the minute and came with draconian contracts. Today it's common to lease a service with an near-infinite supply of minutes, that lets you call anywhere in the country for a flat rate. It's incredibly cheap compared to long distance of twenty years ago. All this, despite the evil resistance of profiteering corporations.
Sure, Microsoft laughed at Apple and Sun when they approached to develop a common standard platform. Times change, and high profits are constantly under attack. Microsoft completely missed the internet boat -- not a single protocol in use on the internet today comes out of Microsoft. Google and many other corporations offer free products that compete favorably with Microsoft's expensive products of yore. It must have sucked to compete with Microsoft in the 90's, but here we are, and where is Microsoft? Sinking billions into R&D in the race against Google.
Over and over, new technologies lead to incredible profits for a few, controlling corporations, but inevitably these situations aren't permanent. Our internet faces censorship threats from governments and exclusivity threats from corporations, but these controls, like others before, won't last.
So what is Mr. Norman going on about? Short-term profiteering? That's what covers my paycheck, and makes all this possible. Privatization of the internet? Maybe temporarily, but if that doesn't truly benefit the public then it simply can't endure against technological advancement.
...and a thousand other reasons. Perhaps a government steps in to break a monopoly. Perhaps a new technology arrives to subvert the control. Perhaps a competitor simply offers something a little better or cheaper.
We don't necessarily have to "spread awareness" for a problem to find a solution. In this case, especially, we're all already pretty "aware" that roaming internet sucks.
"as the business potential became obvious to corporate warlords, they struck, [...] getting willing governments to enact rules, regulations and laws to protect corporate interests"
Aye, there's the rub. Corporate welfare programs are the root cause of everything he's describing, and of a lot of other problems with today's economic system. Restrictions on competition, created by the government, have been a major obstacle to everyone's welfare since at least the 18th century (Adam Smith rails against them at length in Wealth of Nations).
One of the joys of travel is the disconnect. Frankly, the more connected we become, the less time we have for ourselves. I hate it that now I can go to just about the most remote place on earth and no longer have a good reason not be answering emails or phoning home.
Anyone who NEEDS this level of connectivity must be losing all power of imagination, of self-reliance, of self-sufficiency. One of the joys of being abroad is that sense of discovery, finding stuff out for yourself, and more often than not meeting new people in the process. Where's the fun, the romance, in having your phone recommend you a restaurant?
I don't have a smart phone, and am not sure I ever will. I'm in front of the internet all day long in the office, and often at home. Being out and about is a welcome break. And if I need to find somewhere to eat, I'll go find it myself. I'll take in the city, absorb my surroundings, and discover new things in the process.
What worries me about this post is that the most salient solution to one of the main complaints (roaming fees) is to have one giant worldwide provider of mobile broadband. And it's not hard to imagine why that might not be so good.
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.
I for one think that (reasonable) asymmetrical internet connections are mostly a good thing. I mean, could you imagine a residential internet connection that really would handle eg slashdotting? On the other hand, you can get cheapo VPS or a piece of cloud for a fraction of a cost of a actual server, and includes internet connection, probably at least 100M, but likely a Gigabit. And because of high download speeds, you can actually put eg HD videos on your VPS and people will be able to actually consume them.
And that VPS will have probably far less limitations on the content you are distributing via it compared to a residential connection, partly because the higher competition. And if your VPS provider decides to shut your revolutionary website down, it's trivial to move to an another provider, compared to switching your home connection. And additionally VPS is easier to anonymize if you need/want to. Your home connection will always point to your home, and to you.
My phone translates foreign languages, provides maps and directions, recommends restaurants and tells me the news of the day. It lets me communicate with friends around the world and in general, allows me to function. All my knowledge depends upon access to communication services: my email, my calendar, my maps and guidebooks. But all of this is at the mercy of the service provider.
While I agree with his post on the whole, nearly all of those smartphone apps are available offline. His point is more valid when it comes to content.
To quote: "My intelligence is in the cloud. My life is in the cloud. My friends, photographs, ideas and mail. My life. My mind. Take away my cloud and I am left mindless.
Mindless, unattached, not clinging... a proper Nirvana.
What about consumer responsibility? caveat empetor and all. Capitalism only works when we the consumer are willing to buy what is out there instead of holding out for better offers.
Wonder why he writes his column in Word, I can think of no tangible benefit. In fact writing in Word on a Mac is really annoying because you get no spell check access.
> 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.
>Don't be quick to dismiss or disparage "greed and profit" as there has been no greater catalyst for human advancement.
war. While war and its related technological advances are frequently connected to "greed and profit", it is still a driver of its own. For example, Manhattan project and its people weren't driven by "greed and profit".
I guess that depends on how far you want to take causality. As in, do you want to attribute the Manhattan Project solely to the participants' endeavours or go further and attribute them to the aggressions of Hitler?
I'll certainly agree that many technological changes owe their origins to war. Rocketry is a prime example. Another is the steam engine. The ability to make pistons was a direct byproduct of the technology developed to make cannons.
War is an interesting phenomenon. By our nature, we compete. We've competed since we climbed out of the primordial ooze. Actually before.
One can view war as the ultimate means of settling accounts but even that's an incomplete picture as many wars have their origins in culture and religion.
Anyway, my point isn't that greed and profit motivated ALL advancement. The people who invented the solid state transistor but companies who fund such research do so typically with a profit motive. It's that profit motive that also takes a scientific discovery and mass produces it into something people will buy.
Without that profit motive, many such advancements might otherwise be laboratory curiosities.
> 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.
It's a mixed bag all around, this one. The railroads in the US were killed, for the most part, by the Interstate Highway system, an equally nationalized endeavor. But really, they were doomed by geographic reality. Population density in the US is such that in most parts of the country a car is an absolute requirement for every working adult. And gas is cheap enough (relative to the rest of the world) that it's cost effective to rely on trucks and airplanes to move merchandise.
If you privatized Amtrak tomorrow, you'd still see full rail service up and down the Boston-NYC-DC corridor. But running a train through "flyover" country is a waste of money from the get-go.
Part of the issue with rail is that it takes to long compared to the alternatives. This is not really a failing of rail as a technology, but a failure of investment in infrastructure. Outside of the Boston-NYC-DC corridor, the trains can't go as fast due to the rails (IIRC they have to slow down to 35mph). If the infrastructure investment had been there, train travel could be a viable alternative to air travel.
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.
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.
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.
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.