"They Deserve Ruthless Suspicion"

In a brilliant long article at Open Letters Monthly, writer Nathan Schneider reminds us about the value of a serious, well-reasoned questioning of the dogmas of techno-consumerism. And he doesn't mince words either. 

"The Amazon Kindle is a catastrophe: an interface to a proprietary market managed by a profit-motivated outfit that wants to own and monetize your memory theater. … Apple’s iPad, the overgrown smartphone that has been eating up the Kindle’s market-share in the e-book business, isn’t much better. The slicker Apple’s products get, the more overbearingly they seek to control the user experience. … Until these companies take seriously the needs and, above all, the rights of readers (the human beings, not the machines), they deserve ruthless suspicion. … The point of all this worrying is to dig a spur in the capacity of human creativity to outsmart the enemies of imagination. ..."