* * * * *

                         The unintentional conspiracy

> So why am I typing this on a laptop running GNU/Linux [1], the free
> software operating system, not an Apple or Windows machine? And why are my
> phones and tablets running a privacy-enhanced offshoot of Android called
> Cyanogenmod [2], not Apple’s iOS or standard Android?
>
> Because, first of all, I can get my work done fine. I can play games. I can
> surf endlessly. The platform alternatives have reached a stage where
> they’re capable of handling just about everything I need.
>
> …
>
> Control is moving back to the center, where powerful companies and
> governments are creating choke points. They are using those choke points to
> destroy our privacy, limit our freedom of expression, and lock down culture
> and commerce. Too often, we give them our permission—trading liberty for
> convenience—but a lot of this is being done without our knowledge, much
> less permission.
>

Via Reddit [3], “Why I’m Saying Goodbye to Apple, Google and Microsoft —
Backchannel — Medium [4]”

While I'm sympathetic to his views, I don't believe there's one vast
conspiracy to restrict consumers' use of computers. Each step, taken in
isolation, is understandable, but when viewed over time, can appear to be a
vast conspiracy.

Take Apple's control over the applications that can run on its devices [5]
(the article limits itself to programs that run on the iPhone [6] or iPad
[7], but even on their general computer line, the Mac [8], Apple is slowly
clamping down—on my work-issued Mac laptop I had to dive deep into the
settings so I could run programs I wrote myself (WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! DON'T
DO IT! DON'T CHANGE THAT SETTING! AIEEEEEEEEEEE!) [9] on the laptop). They do
it to enhance the user experience, going back as far as 1984 with the release
of the first Macintosh [10]. A major complaint at the time was the inability
to modify the computer as there were no expansion slots. But on the flip side
it made the Macintosh easier to use and more stable.

Sure, you could add new hardware to a PC running MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk
Operating System) [11], but it wasn't particularly easy to do (mainly due to
a hardware limitation in the original IBM PC [12] that other manufacturers
followed to remain fully compatible wherein users had to learn about device
addressing and IRQ (Interrupt Request) settings) and there was always the
chance that the device driver (a special program for talking to the hardware)
for the device (and most likely not written by Microsoft) could have bugs
that crashed the machine (at best—at worse it could silently corrupt memory).
By fully controlling the hardware and restricting the upgrades, Apple could
ensure a better user experience for The Rest Of Us™ [13].

And now it's more than just hardware. Compter viruses (and yes, that is the
proper plural for more than one computer virus) and worms are nothing new
(_The Shockwave Rider_ [14], a science fiction book first published in 1975,
was partially about computer worms) but with the commercialization of the
Internet in the mid 90s, the threat of malware [15] has grown to such
proportions (even images can be a vector for malicious computer code [16])
that it makes sense to severely restrict what can run on a computer and
restrict what the program can do (hence my having to tweak settings on my own
laptop to allow me to run my own software). And Apple, by restricting the
software that is allowed to run on their equipment, can curate the software,
again, to make for a better user experience For The Rest Of Us™.

There's also a myth that large companies like Apple and Microsoft are trying
to prevent The Rest Of Us™ from programming our own computers. During the
rise of the home computer, the 70s and 80s, pretty much every computer sold
came with some form of programming environment, even if the langauge was as
simple as BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) [17]. But
at the time, that was a selling point, primarily because there wasn't the
large market for prewritten software [18] that there is today. With the rise
of shrinkware, there was less need to provide a programming environment with
each computer.

And frankly, the number of people who buy computers and don't want to program
outnumber the people who do want to program. By a lot (I attended high school
in the mid 80s and took Pascal. I can probably count on one finger the number
of people in that class who are still programming today. People, in general,
don't want to program). There was pressure to lower the price of computers
(there was a lot of competition in the 80s and 90s) and market research
probably revealed that not many people cared about programming, and hey, if
the customers don't care about BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code), that's an easy thing to remove to lower the price. No,
there's no vast conspiracy to keep people from programming, just a lack of
interest.

I also run my own email server. I personally don't find it all that hard, but
then again, I've been managing servers since the mid 90s and by now, I know
the ins and outs of running an email server (harder these days than in the
early 90s, long before spam and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) laden emails
deluged the Internet) but not many people want to bother with that, and I'm
including people who could, in principle, run their own email servers. It's
easier to leave that to a company that specializes in running email servers.

In fact, it's easier to rent computers in a data center than to own your own
computers in a data center and leave the actual hardware up to companies that
specialize in running them (and yes, I'm a person who rents a “computer” at a
data center because it is cheaper and I don't have to bother with buying and
managing the hardware, so even I am not completely immune to convenience).
But I realize there's a risk with not having physical ownership of the
hardware (Even ignoring the NSL, authorities can still get a warrent to
search or copy the contents of a server and prevent the company who owns the
server to mention the warrant to the customer who is using the server.
Paranoid? Perhaps. But then again, Snowden proved a lot of conspiracy
theories about the NSA to be true) [19] and for now, I can live with that
risk.

But a vast conspiracy? Nah. I just don't see it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
[2] http://www.cyanogenmod.org/
[3] http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2x5wbi/tech_journalist_dan_gillm
[4] https://medium.com/backchannel/why-i-m-saying-goodbye-to-apple-google-
[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/10226145/The-apps-that-
[6] https://www.apple.com/iphone/
[7] https://www.apple.com/ipad/
[8] https://www.apple.com/mac/
[9] http://www.imore.com/how-open-apps-unidentified-developer-os-x-mountain
[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer#PC
[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_Inc._slogans#Macintosh
[14] https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00J5X5M42/conmanlaborat-20
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware
[16] http://www.geek.com/news/updated2-new-virus-embeds-itself-in-jpg-images
[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
[18] http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/gateswhine.html
[19] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

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