Excellent thread of ‘always interesting to read’ Charlie Schick on freedom, openess, and the evolution of business:

My suggestion is that operators spend more time trying to find other layers to get money from (not wring more money out of the same game), and make other layers a lot more free (can you say access?); that they open themselves up a bit in an enlightened way and not be over protectionist (as in locking phones, for one) like alchemists (who kept dying from drinking mercury); that they surprise us and reinvent the industry, getting out of century-old telco protectionist, the-user-is-an-idiot, thinking; that they understand that control restricts and that easier distribution and lower barriers to entry lead to new levels of creativity; that they remove the complexity making it hard for even them to grow, and to keep things simple – in technology, in services, in pricing, in access, in everything.

I liked a lot the comparison from Cory Doctorow on “Alchemists of the Dark Ages, who toiled individually, jealously guarding their science (and all dying from drinking mercury), to scientists of the Enlightenment, where ideas were shared, a wave which we are still riding.”

Head over and read Charlie’s post.