Charlie Stross is a literate geek who makes a living inventing plausible worlds. That’s why he can write one of the best tech posts of 2009 …
Charlie’s Diary: Gadget Patrol: 21st century phone
… I think Google is pursuing a grand strategic vision of destroying the cellco’s entire business model — of positioning themselves as value-added gatekeepers providing metered access to content — and their second-string model of locking users in by selling them premium handsets (such as the iPhone) on a rolling contract.
They intend to turn 3G data service (and subsequently, LTE) into a commodity, like wifi hotspot service only more widespread and cheaper to get at. They want to get consumers to buy unlocked SIM-free handsets and pick cheap data SIMs. They’d love to move everyone to cheap data SIMs rather than the hideously convoluted legacy voice stacks maintained by the telcos; then they could piggyback Google Voice on it, and ultimately do the Google thing to all your voice messages as well as your email and web access…
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