[rsync]

Before you worry about the pendulum of mobile app ecosystems, perhaps it's worth stepping back a few layers of abstraction, and look at the pendulum of the physical, human-human interface layer.

None of us own our own real property (property tax) - you don't even own your own car (required registration fees even for "planned nonoperation"). You (likely) don't create any of your own food, and are bound by law to carry and present ID.

So ... what ? We build our perfect little RMS style open computing world, while we are renters and debtors at the lower layers of our "societal stack".