[jonnathanson]

I agree, but I think it can be done. The early "outside AOL" internet was less well designed, more haphazard, etc. What eventually pulled people out of AOL and into the metaphorical wild was all the riches that could be found there, and found easily and painlessly (getting to that latter step was the key). Both literally, from a business-opportunity standpoint, and figuratively, from a consumer-enjoyment standpoint. There was more to gain outside the walls of the AOL garden, and so people were (eventually) willing to step outside the comfortable, reasonably well-designed walls and explore it. And they started exploring it when it became easy to find and easy to access.

Apple has done a phenomenal job creating a design-forward, UX-optimized, sparklingly walled garden. But I believe that a richness of content, easily accessed and easily used, can lure people outside.

Two things need to happen: 1) more entrepreneurs need to be convinced that the big rewards are outside the walls, and 2) the things they create will need to lure people out there. We may need a third factor, like the one Yahoo and eventually Google performed for the nascent WWW, which was to add the easy-access layer on top of it all.

Full disclosure: I used to work at Apple, I greatly admire them, and I bear no ill will toward them at all. But I am a big proponent of the open internet, and I believe that the arc of history will bend back toward it eventually.