[backprojection]

I generally agree with your sentiment. I think there's an important distinction to add. By and large, people don't fully expect their mobile devices to be general purpose computing machines in the same way that their PCs are. What I expect from my phone, primarily, is convenience and usability.

Of course, at least on android devices, it's not at all uncommon to install custom variants of the OS (CyanogenMod, etc.), so it does happen.

[mindcrime]

Yes, it does happen, but the device manufacturers (for the most part) don't exactly go out of their way to make it easy. And other than Android forks, there aren't exactly a ton of choices. It's a pretty sad situation in many ways.

Of course, I recognize that most people aren't going to want to install a different OS anyway. And that's OK. Most people didn't install a new OS on their PC's either. But some do, and some want to tinker, create, invent, hack, and innovate. And if we slip into a world where that's not possible, or where it's incredibly difficult, I posit that that is a bad situation for everybody (except, I suppose, Google, Samsung, Apple, etc. stockholders).

[cinquemb]

>And if we slip into a world where that's not possible, or where it's incredibly difficult…But some do, and some want to tinker, create, invent, hack, and innovate.

I don't know, I think there will always be people who will drift towards areas where they feel/embody this, and where the field is so niche that most people just don't care about what you are doing at that moment in time or it's so far removed from what most people engage with on a daily basis.

Fields where the current "monied" players are all running like chickens with their heads cut off, peddling snake oil (too many times have friends heard about some device and asking me if it can really do xyz, and I just facepalm to myself only to realize that things are just so new and most people have the faintest idea of what is actually possible now and what will be possible in the near future), and things like laws/incentives restricting xyz aren't even talked about because people are still trying to figure out what the hell is going on (at least from my perception working in a research lab on the outer tech world).

And even if it is not bad for Google, Samsung, Apple, et al today, years from now, they'll be where ibm is, peddling their watson equivalents to everybody that will listen fighting off their own obsolescence.