That is so sad!
Back in the days I started with computers, there were 2 kind of computer-people:
1 - “users” (developer, graphic artist, musicians)
2 - “lamers” (most of them gamer, just “consuming” software, usually games)
We never respected gamers as they were for cheap thrills and never respected the machines or the software which empowers the users to GODs (yes we were god on these machines!). They switched platforms as fast as something new was around(later mostly consoles: NES, SuperNES, Saturn,Playstation, etc. )
Now, with the advent of tablet/mobile computing peple can be breaked down in 3 categories:
1 - developer creator of software, a highly specialized task usually only applicable in a small niche
2 - creators (graphic artist, musicians)
3 - lamers (all people who are just consuming: facebooking, bloging is also part of this category)
Nevertheless these 3rd category thinks it is somekind of “IT-Professional” or “digital native” or such kind of nonsense.
But they are still the lamers from before: changing the platform without participating to anything but consuming software(nowadays called “apps”)
Tablets and Smartphones are like gameconsoles: you are in a walled garden, a golden cage.
That is not what our fathers(eg Steven Levy, John Perry Barlow, Richard Stallman, Jerome H. Saltzer, David P. Reed, David D. Clark. and many more) had fight for!
So even the most tech-savvy people throw away decades of war against big corporations to embrace the brave new world in a golden cage.
This is the future?
This is the end of independent software creators.
Linux created on an iPad?
GNU created on an iPad?
anything platform independant created on iPad?
You buy a cheap piece of silicon with hard coded functions embedded deep in proprietary. Not quite the same as you have standing on your desk:
A universal computing machine under your own power,
PS:
I do not start with environmental concerns (compare usage of average phone to a computer/laptop)…