Closed Computing --A future view today

My mail carrier unknowingly delivered a not so pleasant surprise today, my wireless phone bill.

I have a busy, growing family right now. Communication is tough with all the practices, after school events and volunteer work, keeping tabs on everyones' whereabouts is no small task. We tried whiteboards, notes, schedules, you name it --nothing worked.

Late last year, just before the Christmas holiday, I decided to enroll in one of the many family wireless phone plans being advertised everywhere. The number of options and phones is staggering, but I eventually settled on a plan that included several phones bundled for free. I actually wanted simpler phones that only both made and received calls, but for a number of reasons, I ended up with the more feature rich camera phones. At this point, you may be wondering what exactly this has to do with closed computing and the future. Bear with me for a bit longer as I make that clear.

Remember what I really wanted was phones. Simple devices that both made and received calls. What I got were little computers packed with lots of features, most of which have very little to do with actually making phone calls. At first I could not figure out why the phone companies favored these more complex and costly devices when they could easily offer no-frills phones as well. As my family began using their new phones, I soon found out why the newer feature rich phones are favored by the wireless companies.

We found it almost impossible not to accidently trigger pay per use features. The design of the phone put costly features on buttons that people naturally want to push. Complex menus provide many options, other than making a phone call, at your fingertips. One of these options happens to be the text message. As an adult, text messages are mostly useless to me. Why not just make a phone call instead? Kids however, love text messages. They will use them for any number of small and mostly insignificant communications all day long. Phone companies charge fairly large amounts per text message sent. In my case, this cost is a dime per message. Given the low bandwidth cost of a text message compared to an actual phone call, the cost of text messages should be near free, but it is not. Why?

My goal was to get a simple plan and some phones, in order to keep the cost of family communication to a low known minimum. The wireless companies goal is quite a bit different. They obviously want to collect as much each month, per subscriber group, as they can. The balance between these two happens to be at the phone. This is where closed computing comes in.

As a user of the phone technology, I have zero control over the technology. Here in the US, most phones are tied to their particular carrier. Until recently, we did not even have the option of keeping our number from carrier to carrier. By keeping the technology closed to the end user, phone companies have managed to achieve a high degree of lock-in, checked only by legislation. They are free, for the most part, to charge what they believe the market will bear for any and all services they provide. The high degree of lock in, combined with the closed technology they distribute for use with their service, keeps this cost as high as possible, rather than as low as possible. None of this benefits the average wireless consumer, while nearly all of it benefits the service providers.

All of this sunk in for the first time today as a read my bill. The actual monthly cost of the service was as stated. Extra charges for accidental internet / data usage was about 5 percent of my total bill. Additional charges for text messages equaled 60 percent of my normal monthly bill, for a total bill equal to 165 percent of the norm. Clearly something needed to be done.

I did what anyone would normally do. I called to have the extra services removed from my phone plan. I was told this was not possible. The features are built into the phone and will be billed for, if used. Changing phones, plan features, or carriers all were costly options due to the contracts that are made a condition of service, or because other phones would not work with the services I subscribed to. Everything was designed to make it as hard as possible for people to keep their cost of service to their planned minimum. Lets just say, I am less than happy with this situation. The phone companies are taking advantage of how kids use phones. The high cost of text messaging is not justified in any way, other than as a profit center for the service provider.

Make no mistake, part of this clearly is a rant about the high cost of text messages, but the deeper message is about control and technology and how a lack of control affects the end user. Looking closely at current state of affairs in the wireless industry today, is a nice way to understand what computing is going to look like, if we continue to allow our currently open options to erode.

The closed DRM controlled computer will resemble the cell phone of today in many ways. Today, any content I send or receive on my phone costs money to do so. Sending pictures, getting ring tones, accessing internet information, text messaging and games all cost per use. The only content I can make use of, on the phone, is content provided to me through the service provider. There is almost no free content. It is not possible for me to create and or distribute my own content (other than pictures and voice messages) to other users. The cost to the end user tends to be as high as people will pay for because closed technology lock-in provides little incentive for the service providers to compete for your dollar.

Almost all computers today are open in contrast. Making our own sounds, pictures, writings and such are easily done. We have many options for exchanging our own content and few restrictions. Much of the online content we consume is free, other than the cost of monthly access and time spent on ads. We also have a high degree of control over our computers as well. We can, for the most part, choose what they do for us and how they do it. The cost of computing tends to be as low as others can provide it for because open technology and almost no lock-in assures healthy and heavy competition for your dollar.

See the difference? I do and its not pretty. Closed technology only benefits those who produce it. Those that use it are exploited to the limit with few alternatives, other than to discontinue use. Locked in consumers (excuse me, I mean citizens) have few choices other than those carefully crafted by the technology providers and those our own inadequate law provides for. Does this sound like a healthy environment to participate in to you? It sure doesn't to me.

That is what closed computing is all about. Many people have written about the differences, myself included. I thought maybe this perspective might sink in where other, more technical, ones might fail. Take a hard look at your wireless bill, consider your few options, then think about computing, hopefully in a new light.

The media giants today are all about piracy. Don't believe a word of it. They see dollar signs lost because they see more potential sales, at our expense. They would have us pay for our own content just as we would for theirs. Ideally, everyting would be made avaliable to us online at a cost per view with few to no options for archives. They say they are losing billions every day because we have a degree of control that makes them work hard for our dollar, not because of piracy.

When you see an exciting new service that requires DRM hardware and or software, think hard about your cell phone. Is it really worth that movie or music download to give up your open options you have today? How about that new operating system that requires a specific kind of computer to operate on. Sure you can play the latest movies, but you might find making your own a bit tough. Same goes with music and other types of media.

When I write about Open Technology, I normally mean Open Standards and computers running Open Code. This means Linux, html, Ogg Vorbis (like an mp3, only totally open), and other similar things. The reality of today is that these things are not yet ready for everyone, they will be, if not legislated out of existance through purchased laws. So what can you do? Ask good questions about the technology you can use. Does it have restrictions? How will they affect your own content, can you make backups? Take some time to ask a friend or two what they think. Maybe they have already considered the issue, or can help you begin to learn to take advantage of the Open Technology avaliable to you today.

Most of the discussion frames the battle over Open Technology around piracy. Really its all about control. Today, with computers, you have it, even though you might not realize you do. Before giving that up, take some time to learn what it means to you. Freedom is something that is very hard to earn, as the founders of this country learned. I believe they would be shocked today to learn how things are changing. I am not sure they would want to be a part of it.

Trading your computing freedom for a few movies or music you can easily get elsewhere is foolish, unless you don't mind paying as much as you can bear for the right to perform basic computing tasks you do for free today.

2004-02-21T19:18:15