[ethank]

People get so caught up in existing paradigms and the resultant hegemonies which enforce them that they become blind to the obvious.

This journalist is not alone in this. Examples permeate both media history and just criticism in general. For anything that is "obvious" there is always a contrarian who seems unable to see movement which we see as obvious.

Anyhow, the iPhone announcement in 2007 was interesting from my viewpoint being in a major record label because of how it portended the complete and utter end of control. It brought domestically something that was already happening in South Korea, where "ownership" of content meant little to the average consumer.

Of course the label folks thought it would mean more money from ringtones, and were bitterly disappointed that it didn't support custom ones out the gate.

Basically people saw what they wanted with the iPhone announcement, not what was actually there.

[rkwz]

>It brought domestically something that was already happening in South Korea, where "ownership" of content meant little to the average consumer.

Can you expand on this?

[ethank]

What was happening in SK was that the hardware of the device started mattering more to consumers than the content on it. They tried to duplicate this in the US with Helio and failed. Unlike in SK, the bandwidth doesn't' make up for the crappy device, since our cell network is so far behind.

South Korea made content owners supper optimistic about things like "Comes with Music" (from Nokia) and the "dead-before-launching" Beyond Oblivion. Lock in via cell hardware was their last hope.