The PC - (and the Mac) are not curated.
The iPad (and the 360) are.
C.
So is "curated" your word for "RIP-OFF" or does it mean "controlled in a similar fashion of a Dictatorship or Communist government?"
I'd say the latter. Like most things today where companies do everything in their power to rip-off the consumer (especially banks and the entire credit card industry), I guess we need specific laws passed to force companies to behave fairly and honestly rather than count on them to day the right thing when they don't know the meaning of the word.
The basic problem is that digital and networked media is becoming overwhelmingly powerful in scope and there is little to no regulation for this industry. Traditional media and brick and mortar outlets have rules governing their behavior and laws to cover many of their tactics (e.g. like bait and switch advertising). There needs to be laws to regulate and govern digital media distribution. I know bloggers would hate it, but the fact is that anyone can libel anyone on a blog site today with little or no oversight and similarly companies that are getting huge market shares of digital distribution hardware (e.g. like Apple and its iPad and iPod Touch and iPhone) have
way too much say in who is allowed to distribute their media and/or software on their particular hardware platform. Some may cry fowl, but it is not ABC or CBS or even Fox who determine what companies can advertise on their networks within reasonable guidelines, but rather it is the advertisers that determine whether they want to be associated with a particular network or television program's message when they buy that ad block. In other words, broadcasters cannot arbitrarily discriminate against those wishing to distribute their ads on their network whereas Apple seems to think it can tell various developers to take a hike if they happen to produce competing software to something that Apple makes or if they don't give 1/3 their revenue to Apple to carry it. The former is anti-competition and should stink to high heaven to anyone that cares about fair and open competition and the latter is using a position of significant market share to demand outrageous fees (not dissimilar to the credit card and banking industry imposing ridiculous fees for everything under the sun to take advantage of their customers).
Just because something is legal, that doesn't make it ethical. Laws had to be passed to deal with the credit card industry (who is already working their butts off to find new and creative ways around those laws) and so I say they need to be passed for newer methods of media distribution. We've already seen some steps in this area (e.g. Net neutrality to deal with internet providers shifting profit their way while taking advantage of piracy's demand for ever greater bandwidth to avoid paying for traditional media distribution) while the pirates themselves often justify their actions because they feel they are being taken advantage of with high prices for non-traditional media (wherein you get nothing to resell, DRM and high prices comparable to hard media). Look at Napster's initial popularity because there was no reasonable way to buy only songs you liked at the time.
I know certain demographics despise regulation, but unfortunately without it, you end up with unscrupulous and often unfair and/or unreasonable behavior by all involved. Corporations have huge lobbying efforts to represent their rights in government, but consumers are pretty much overlooked these days with things like the DMCA being rammed down our collective throats to override previous "fair use" rulings and the like that somehow apparently are not covered with "digital" media despite the differences being arbitrary, especially where lossy digital media is involved. I don't see why we the consumers should have to put up with not being able to get a certain news service, magazine or movie just because one side or the other is making unreasonable demands for their particular platform. Why should Apple be able to say I cannot buy a particular digital newspaper for the iPad simply because that newspaper will not agree to Apple's demands? So then I have to go out and buy another piece of hardware to read that newspaper? That's ridiculous in so many ways.
Perhaps a law is needed to define what digital media like digital newspapers and magazines can be sold for (formula-wise) so that all hardware companies are on an even playing field and the consumer doesn't get screwed out of being able to buy something simply because Apple says that they cannot sell something on their device that doesn't cut them into 1/3 the revenue despite the fact that the service is run through the Internet on the device and isn't carried in their 'monopolized' (defined here as the only one officially available) App-store. It's bad enough they won't let various apps be sold on their store, but to say someone cannot use the Internet on the same device with their App to sell "around Apple" is ridiculous. That should be a consumer choice whether they buy something off the Internet with a browser or through Apple's store or not. Purposely limiting the device so software cannot be loaded into an App without Apple's permission is also going too far.
Where are the consumer rights to use the hardware they own in a way that they choose? What business of Apple's should it be to look at a document I want to store on my iPad before I can load it onto it (i.e. to make sure I'm not putting the New York Times on there myself that I bought using a traditional browser). Imagine if iTunes removed the "add to library" option and only let you put things on there by submitting it to Apple first and then only if it's tagged with an official iTunes store signature and therefore any non-iTunes sold media would not be allowed in iTunes on either your computer or your iPod/iPad/iPhone. I'm sure there are a lot of fanboys on here who would 100% OK with that. They'd tell the rest of us to go buy an Android or Microsoft product if we don't like being forced to buy 100% of our media through Apple (so Apple gets a huge cut no matter what) and too bad if Apple doesn't carry this artist or this movie studio or this magazine. I guess you could carry around maybe 5 or 6 iPad-like devices just to make sure you can read them all.....
After all, what other choice would you have if this is taken to that extreme? Just don't read those magazines or books? At what point is that discrimination then? What if Apple decided they didn't want to carry conservative themed books or magazines or newspapers and used this all as an excuse not to do it? You could argue they have the right to refuse media that is not aligned with their company's philsophy, but where is the consumer in all of this? I couldn't care less what Apple thinks; I want the media that I care about. Apple is just selling me a delivery vehicle, as far as I'm concerned. Imagine if Chevy tried to tell me where I could drive my car I bought from them. Sorry, but our car is programmed to not allow you to drive onto a Ford or Toyota parking lot (and the brakes lock up when you try to pull in there).
