Well said! The age of enlightenment would be hard to imagine under the patent and digital rights regimes of the current U.S. and the nations it controls. Nevertheless, it's a bonus for the financial elite, so it won't change in a hurry.

I get sick of joining a checkout queue with my purchase in one hand and the correct change in the other, then having to wait forever while people ahead of me shuffle stacks of credit cards, wait for a pathetically slow electronic transaction, then fumble their cards back into their wallets. Cash is best, and NFC is probably the best alternative, as the women and kids would only have to pull their phones from their ears, which is much quicker than fumbling stacks of plastic.

I'm an Australian and I'd be really pissed off if the government opened, read, copied and kept a record of all my mail as it passed through the post office. I'd be just as pissed off if the elite political class did the same to my phone and internet communications. Of course, we can fight back with encryption, steganography etc., but life's tedious enough already.

Here in Queensland, Australia, the government now applies rigid speed limits, whereas there used to be a latitude of perhaps 10 kph. In the usual city 60 kph limit, you get tail-gated, honked and abused at less than 55 kph. Anyone who's tried to keep between 55 and 60 kph will know that watching the speedometer closely in traffic is more dangerous than using a cellphone and I've had several close calls since the stricter rules were imposed. Of course, the government now collects more money from fines, although they don't have to pay the higher insurance rates they cause.

Infamous??? I'd say the US intelligence services were infamous.

Yep, the biggest battle will be to overcome the resistance from admistrators who are enjoying various forms of quid pro quo from Microsoft. Open Source can't compete with that.

There was once a time when musicians had to play and actors had to tread the boards to earn. We've since been conditioned to accept extortion by third parties who offer only mass-produced reproduction of this performance at exorbitant prices.
We're all quite happy to pay for added services, convenience, distribution etc., while this gives the artists publicity for their live appearances.
What we don't like is supporting obscene corporate profits and drug habits etc. by being forced to pay millions of times for a single work, or performance. It's an analogous situation to proprietary software and other forms of patented knowledge.