Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property

Yesterday Google displayed it's new operating system, Chromium. Operating system might be a slightly grandious term, as it seems to basically make the computer a dumb terminal and use the "cloud" for all it's computing needs. For those that don't know "cloud" is what we call the internet now, as saying "we use the internet" in ads sounds dumb, but saying "we use the cloud" sounds cutting edge.

At any rate, Chromium is basically just the Chrome browser running by itself without any other OS beneath it. (I realize I'm oversimplifying, but this isn't really a tech review.) This means that to store and access files you are either using Google's servers or someone else's servers for non-Google aps. Now this brings me to my main point, the trend towards lack of ownership with software.

With this OS you are entirely dependent of Google for access to everything you create on your computer, as none of it is really on your computer. This is not a new concept, its a trend that is growing rapidly, with the popularity of "cloud" computing. The future of electronic distribution seems to be renting everything from the cloud, rather than actually purchasing products you simply get a license to use it on someone elses server. If anyone thinks Microsoft has too much power now with a majority of people forced to use Windows, imagine if all your data and programs were running off of Microsoft servers as well (which means they are charging you for the service). If you want to access your music, or your games you are going to have to pay the provider to get access to them on their servers.

I may be in the minority, but the concept of ownership is pretty important too me. To simply rent access to things I pay for in the "cloud" rubs me the wrong way, not only because it's a nother dumb buzz word, but because it gives too much power to those who control the content.