This is the latest in a long series of similar articles. I am fully in agreement with the premise: the movement toward closed, less-than-hackable systems like

This is the latest in a long series of similar articles. I am fully in agreement with the premise: the movement toward closed, less-than-hackable systems like the iPhone are bad for individuals, bad for computer science, and ultimately bad for society because they stifle tinkering, creativity, and learning via technological mechanisms and legal threats. Isn't it time we move beyond this analysis? In particular, I'm wondering: 1. What has changed since the glory days of personal hacking (I assume this was sometime in the 70s or 80s) that has made this shift toward closed devices possible? Is it a change in the law, granting device manufacturers and software companies more control over users? a change in the complexity of technology? the result of once hacker-friendly companies becoming greedier, larger, or more entrenched? 2. Is the perceived shift towards closed devices really a shift? Are people giving up hacker-friendly alternatives in order to have an iPhone or iPad? Or are we simply seeing a growth in the use of personal computing devices, with new hacker movements still to come?