Doc Searls has a good post on Getting Past Telco 1.0 at Linux Journal. He uses T-mobile's ridiculous "roaming charges" as an example of the kind of thing old-style telcos do that makes their customers hate them. He concludes:

We're always going to have big companies. There are many things only big companies can do. But when those things involve the Net, those companies need outside help from free-range developers. They can't do it alone. They can't mandate it from the inside. Won't work.

Dan Frye once told me that it took IBM several years to realize that they couldn't tell their Linux kernel hackers what to do, and that in fact it was those hackers who were actually telling IBM what to do. We need similar realizations in the Internet space. We need hackers to develop new applications that make the most of a Net that's wide open and free. We need to show the telcos and cablecos of the world that the Net is a vast frontier that it is their privilege to open, that free-range developers are going to be their primary source of solutions, and that customers are more than cattle to be herded and milked.

From Getting Past Telco 1.0 | Linux Journal
Referenced Mon Nov 03 2008 16:21:45 GMT-0700 (MST)