I actually had the opportunity to spend about 45 minutes with Gates once when he came and made a presentation to a kid's computer camp, back in the 90s, at Carleton University, here in Ottawa.

I found his optimism infectious, but can't help but ask where it's all leading. How, for example, can the digital revolution take place when it's being choked by DRM? If it's a revolution, who's it for? If DRM restricts the rights of users to manipulate data, copyrighted or not, then the revolution is for the corporations, and us consumers are subjugated by it, NOT liberated.

Another side-effect of that climate of restriction is the proliferation of expensive, proprietary hardware and software, and the disappearance of ubiquitous, cheap, general-purpose computer technology. How is any of this supposed to liberate the user? Certainly not in the same way that the personal computer did.

Here's what I think happened: your industry developed super
powerful information processing technology, on the backs of the population, on the premise that it was going to liberate us. All along though you actually planned to enslave and control us and, now that your computer systems are powerful enough, you're finally in a position to do just that. It was never about us: you only needed us to consume your technology so that you could finance its development. Now you are in a position to utterly and completely enslave us with it.

Now, increasingly, we live in a world of digital techno fascism. Am I the only one that sees it? We've been duped.