Digital Power Struggles

Technology consumers, producers, and regulators seem to be engaged in a perpetual struggle for control over individuals' technology. For companies, control provides business opportunities, allows for easy-to-use software, and encourages customer loyalty. For regulators, control allows them to enforce order. For consumers, control provides privacy and freedom to do what they will with their belongings. This struggle is central to operating system preference, with Apple on the company-controlled end of the spectrum and Linux on the other end. This struggle is the core concern behind the NSA surveillance scandals, a significant barrier to effective enforcement of copyright law, and a major motivation behind the open-source movement. Just lately, Valve has opted to try and disrupt the status quo of company control in the console gaming market by manufacturing an open-source, fully hackable gamingconsole. I don't claim to know where the optimum balance of control is. But we live in an age where information is power, so the question of who controls our information is critical.