[Create]

will never harm anyone's ability to tinker with technology that want to. There will always be platforms that are open by design

No. Freedom is never granted: it is use or loose it.

Most posters miss the cultural aspect, which is more fragile than you might think. E.g. those, who have no longer seen quality colour TV do no longer have a demand for it. When was The Ascent of Man, or The Day the Universe Changed last updated? When you could learn about the world around you? Perhaps a decade ago? TV hardware is more advanced as ever (large, crisp home theaters) and locked-down as ever (DRM, HDMI, CryptoCard etc.) Would you think you have a case, that there is a demand for quality TV content?

completely open device like OpenMoko

A very good example: it is a practically completely discontinued open communications device. Last time communication devices were open was HAM, which was quickly taken away (read example on freeculture.org).

[WinterAyars]

There's another issue too. It's not just "the iPad is closed, therefore openness is doomed". That would be obviously silly. The problem is that all the powerful forces in our society (barring technology itself) are pushing towards these closed, integrated, proprietary systems. Go look at what ISPs want to do to our internet access! Rather than, as we would expect, having cell phone contracts become more internet-like they want it to be the other way around!