Akkam’s Razor

The last issue that you may not be hearing anything (or enough) about is net neutrality.  The communications & entertainment industries are rapidly evolving.  Phone companies offering cable. Cable companies offering telephone services.  Satellite radio & cellular providers preparing to branch out to video & data.   Electric companies providing broadband.  The top-down model is on it's way to extinction.  If the interests of industry are to be most important, than we can be assured of a worldof less choice, less options, and a higher cost with less value.  The telecom industry wants to make money off Google, the cable-TVcompanies don't want to share their bandwidth with VOIP carriers, and content producers want to limit what you can do with content that you own.

The trojan horse that your freedom will ride away on is the HD revolution.  Analog broadcasts, be they cable, radio, or other audiohas variable quality, as well as being extremely difficult to protect from "abuse" by the pirate & "fair use" by the consumer.  Digital, however is easy- the "perfect" transmission of '1's and '0's makes it easy to incorporate broadcast flags to limit what can be done with thatcontent on next generation A/V equipment.  That makes it  extremely efficient at crippling devices and limiting what you can do withrecorded content.

Long story, short: You're going to have to pay more money to do less on the internet in the future.