^ ok. The way I took what you were writing was that. If you mean 'free to pick and choose' a la Uvah, I agree.
Agreed. This is my last wall of text. The cloud as a concept and service is a wonderful idea--but...
My response (somewhat tongue in cheek if you missed it) was to point that it comes down to "believing everything business does is good" or realizing that while everything is possible it isn't all good.
I own my own business and am a fan of responsible capitalism...meaning, the business owners understand that with their freedom to gain wealth they have a moral obligation to act responsibly towards society--not just shareholders. I live in the States so I can only speak from that perspective but the dodges used to justify greedy business practice quite often revolve around the concept that "our shareholders are society--therefore, whatever we do that benefits us is best for society".
There is already a US parallel for the trends in computing and it also involves mass media--television and radio. It was determined some time ago in the courts here that "the airwaves" belong to the American people. In order to insure equal access, anyone was allowed to apply for a license. What happened quickly is the license fees and legal efforts needed to secure them rose to astronomical levels. Now it is absurd to open a local radio station with less than $2.5 million USD...yet all it takes a $2500 transmitter and $2500 antennae setup to establish a countywide one. It doesn't matter of course because all of the radio frequencies are purchased by radio corporate conglomerates. The only way to get one is to have an existing station and barter/trade for one somewhere or else wait for another low power AM station to die.
Television? Even harder and far more expensive. You'll need a couple of million annually just to tread water and stay in business and it's even harder to get a channel.
So right now we are in the midst for a battle here over "who really owns the internet" and it has fallen closer and closer towards "the ones who can buy it". Cloud computing was a dead idea (though actually a very good one) for a long time and it wasn't until large cable and telco companies started buying huge assets for net traffic that it suddenly took off.
Of course we want to own the only waterhole in town--then we can charge by the spoonful (instead of a monthly small water bill) when we pipe it to your house.
I am fine with digital sales and service--it is the future, I'm not fine with a laissez-faire attitude toward what much business is maneuvering to get--which is the right to charge you for every thing you do. I read a lot and over the past few years, many of the Fortune 500 business plans for media are so incredibly gouging that my jaw has literally dropped.
A good example is cable services in the US which have more than tripled in price in many areas over the last ten years.
So if I manage to get ownership of the net, then I can stop making products you buy (and need) and then I can simply make you pay me every time you use them. This is more than "how much will my cable bill be?", this is"Will I actually be able to control and own my computer and the business I run on it?".
Sorry for the hijack Doc. To me this is a truly, "clear and present danger" and if people don't communicate to each other and government on it then it's simply going to happen (though Europe, ironically, seems to be ahead of us in establishing net freedoms). If you look back at my satirical "Bill" story above, every element of it has a real-life counterpart that already exists or has been proposed by a business.
