IPod, IPhone, and IPad: Tied Down and Locked In

In 1998 my family and I decided to undertake an open-ended sailing voyage. One of the eye-opening prepatory tasks we needed to preform was to cut the contractual and habitual umbilici that tied us down and locked us in.

Here’s a partial list of the contractual tie-downs that we had to cut before we could be freed to act.

• Mortgage contracts
• Credit card contracts
• Secured loan contracts
• Utility contracts
• Telephone service contracts
• Cell phone contracts
• Internet service contracts
• Newspaper/magazine subscription contracts
• Insurance contracts
• Cable TV contracts
• Employment contracts
• Tax obligations

Note: We discovered that many of these cords are intertwined so that in order to cut one, you must first unwind others.

The process of becoming locked-in has a way of sneaking up on you. It isn’t until you make a conscious decision to throw off the ties that enslave you that you become aware of the degree to which you have become the property of faceless and uncaring corporations. When the time comes to cut the cords that bind you, because you want to or must, you discover that you are bound by contracts and habits that do not yield easily to your knife’s cutting edge.

Today, locking you in has become more than ever before, a corporate strategy, and no company understands this better than Apple. They do a superb job of mind control in which they habituate their customers to style without substance,  a steady diet of corporate approved applications and content, and a blind acceptance of lock-in. They are the current trail blazers when it comes to enslaving human actors in a digitally rendered virtual cocoon, and getting them to pay and pay and pay for the right to be ensnared in their web. And all the while, the media pundits herald them as the gold-standard of American (land of the free) ingenuity and innovation.

Technology can provide us with wonderful tools that make us more free, but we can also become enslaved by those who control those technologies and pander to our basest instincts. We are easily habituated to the seemingly risk-free digital experience, but lurking behind the Wizard’s curtain, are actors whose business models depend on tying you down and locking you into a tangled web.

Does this sound a bit paranoid to you? If you want to understand, just try cutting the cords.