I wonder if it might be more accurate to trace the decline to Sony's purchase of Columbia. There's an intrinsic tension between the interest of the user of an e

I wonder if it might be more accurate to trace the decline to Sony's purchase of Columbia. There's an intrinsic tension between the interest of the user of an electronic media consumption device and the producer of content, and Sony went from being on the side of the user — e.g. Probably being as annoyed by the tax on cassette tapes as users were — to straddling the fence. Sony was a very successful company in 1989 when it bought Columbia, and its success masked the underlying problem. You might draw an analogy to Apple here — as Apple becomes interested in revenue from content it will face the same tensions (and perhaps already does). Similarly, Apple makes most of its money from carrier subsidies now, and is perhaps perhaps is now as locked into the Evil carrier business model as its predecessors, even if it has thus far avoided junkware.