Personal computers started out simple. So simple that you could just type in programs and run them, save them, and even give them to your friends. But over time, things got more complicated. A lot more complicated.
To a kid growing up in the 1980s, the idea that the maker of your computer would actively stop you from using software it didn’t approve of would have seemed beyond the pale. It certainly would’ve been a deal-breaker. And yet so many of today’s computing devices are locked down–for some good reasons, but also a lot of bad ones.
What do we want the world to look like in the future? Is the destiny of the most important invention of the last half-century, the computer, to become a series of locked-down devices controlled by the giant companies that designed them? Should the iPhone be the model for all future devices?
Read more at Macworld.com