I can live with a locked down device. I have a friend who may "love" such a feature, given her light use and the fact that her Windows PC has been wiped 4 times to remove malware.
But when such a device has the potential to take over the market and eliminate other channels of delivery and "ownership", I become very concerned. That's what most concerns me about the iPad; that in a year -- or more likely three -- I'll have to have one in order to access content. And then I'll only have a temporary, non-transferable, revocable-upon-whim license to said content. Bah.
I don't mind paying a reasonable amount. I do mind being locked in to whatever a monopoly dictates, in terms of cost but also in terms of rights. And I mind paying over and over and over for the same thing, as the platform changes.
And when "big media" so controls the content, what's to prevent the effective revision of history? What torture pictures? What treaty details? (What "Catcher In the Rye"?)
I guess some of us will have to resort to taking pictures of our iPads, just to document what was said. Let's just hope we're still able to do that.
(Finally, a personal grudge: I can tolerate advertisements, but ones involving motion and/or sound COMPLETELY distract me. Will the content become unusable for people like me, because the delivery channel forces an overwhelming level of distraction?)
I also hate the animated ads, and like most everyone else use Adblock or Ad-art. But on a completely locked down device it's highly unlikely that this type of customisation would be available to you, since ads of whatever annoyance level mean maximization of revenue.
Devices like iPad are exactly what "big media" want, and if we let them it's just what they'll get. Anything inconvenient, be it torture pictures, leaked information or whatever could be erased from millions of devices at the centralized click of a button. Think you own that library of ebooks you paid for? Think again. Want to transfer your content from one locked down device to another? You'll have to pay us first. Think you have any fair use rights whatever? Not on this device, baby.
