I'll take your independence and Borgify it.
Ever since i was young, i remember having a bias against any large corporation, or superseding entity. Riding in the "way back then" machine, i recall watching an episode of that Tim Allen show, Home Improvement, and noticing that it, along with a number of other popular television shows, were produced by Buena Vista Production, which is ultimately owned by Disney. And once i realized this, i mentioned to my mom that it was somehow creepy that almost all the tv shows i was watching were made by this same company, and that it'd be more interesting if each show was made by entirely different people. And my mom's response was "But wouldn't you be happy if it was our name that was put on everything?" To which i responded "No, it'd be just as bad.".
Even further back in the "way back then" machine, i recall watching episodes of the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, and realizing that it, along with a myriad of toys and other children's shows, were produced by Bandai, a Japanese production company that deals with anime nowadays and the production of anime paraphernalia. Even then, in my 7 years of age, i felt that such homogeneous viewings was somehow wrong, but i couldn't really figure out why, or realize how to voice my opinions about the matter.
This is perhaps why i have come to hate Microsoft, Apple, and am even becoming weary of Google. All of these companies either already are, or are making their attempts to, extending their reach into every sector of computing and technology that they can. Microsoft has it's operating system, software design suites, office suites, server systems, mobile phone technologies, mobile mp3 devices, internet search engines, internet application frameworks, video players, video game systems, and a handy tie in with just about all hardware sold. Apple has pretty much all the same things except the internet search engines and application frameworks and video game, but i'm sure they will one day try to bring those to the world too. Google too has a number of these things, or is expected to branch out into these areas.
When most people look at this situation, like say a Mac computer, they find it exciting because it's such a simple and straightforward package. Everything in one little bundle that just magically works. Except it works only in the way that the original designers had intended it to. There is little to no flexibility to make it do things that the owner has dreamed of, and people are even actively trying to prevent these dreams from coming to completion. It seems that by getting simplicity, we are trading our freedom and creativity. We're now delegating the act of creation, thought, and design to these super entities that are slowly telling us what we should be wanting, instead of us designing things and saying "we want you to make more of this for me".
I'm not sure how that majority of the public feels about this, but i truly dislike the way companies today are eating up more and more sectors of the economy and market, ala The Borg. Even though competing companies, like Cuil sometimes make terrible products that accidentally show gay porn, they are ultimately wonderful to see spring up. Then it's always sad to see the Borg swoop down and consume them as soon as they start to show a profit.
So perhaps our lives are made simpler with all this "synergy", it's ultimately going to make us lazier as a culture, and make life less interesting. Or maybe i'm just slowly becoming too much of an anarchist.
Even further back in the "way back then" machine, i recall watching episodes of the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, and realizing that it, along with a myriad of toys and other children's shows, were produced by Bandai, a Japanese production company that deals with anime nowadays and the production of anime paraphernalia. Even then, in my 7 years of age, i felt that such homogeneous viewings was somehow wrong, but i couldn't really figure out why, or realize how to voice my opinions about the matter.
This is perhaps why i have come to hate Microsoft, Apple, and am even becoming weary of Google. All of these companies either already are, or are making their attempts to, extending their reach into every sector of computing and technology that they can. Microsoft has it's operating system, software design suites, office suites, server systems, mobile phone technologies, mobile mp3 devices, internet search engines, internet application frameworks, video players, video game systems, and a handy tie in with just about all hardware sold. Apple has pretty much all the same things except the internet search engines and application frameworks and video game, but i'm sure they will one day try to bring those to the world too. Google too has a number of these things, or is expected to branch out into these areas.
When most people look at this situation, like say a Mac computer, they find it exciting because it's such a simple and straightforward package. Everything in one little bundle that just magically works. Except it works only in the way that the original designers had intended it to. There is little to no flexibility to make it do things that the owner has dreamed of, and people are even actively trying to prevent these dreams from coming to completion. It seems that by getting simplicity, we are trading our freedom and creativity. We're now delegating the act of creation, thought, and design to these super entities that are slowly telling us what we should be wanting, instead of us designing things and saying "we want you to make more of this for me".
I'm not sure how that majority of the public feels about this, but i truly dislike the way companies today are eating up more and more sectors of the economy and market, ala The Borg. Even though competing companies, like Cuil sometimes make terrible products that accidentally show gay porn, they are ultimately wonderful to see spring up. Then it's always sad to see the Borg swoop down and consume them as soon as they start to show a profit.
So perhaps our lives are made simpler with all this "synergy", it's ultimately going to make us lazier as a culture, and make life less interesting. Or maybe i'm just slowly becoming too much of an anarchist.