Either computers would be useless novelties or they would be mainstream and lose the hacker/counterculture status. Those are the only two options. Maybe you do

Either computers would be useless novelties or they would be mainstream and lose the hacker/counterculture status. Those are the only two options. Maybe you don't look at your cell phone or nintendoDS and think "hmm, there must be some way to run irc on this thing". Maybe you don't care anymore, but there are huge communities who do. Maybe the spirit of openness is fundamental to the tools themselves?