Programming has a spectrum of difficulty. The tools can always be improved to make the easier parts easier and the harder parts more manageable, but in the end the hard parts are hard because of the nature of the work; not due to lack of tools.

In more mature fields the spectrum of difficulty is well understood and no one expects the hard parts to be easy. If a person can write a "hello world" program then it should not be expected they will have the wherewithal to roll out healthcare.gov. If a person can apply a bandage to a skinned knee then it should not be expected they will have the wherewithal to do brain surgery; regardless of how good the tools are.

The brave new world is sorting out what companies, services, and communication mediums are subject to Common Carrier regulations. If Facebook is a common carrier, then there should be some expectation of privacy. If not, then not.

Facebook (and many service providers) are currently and deliberately in a gray zone. If they are not common carriers then they can do whatever they please with the goods (electrons, bits) that they transport because it is their own private property once you hand it to them; per the terms of service. That is good for business because people are handing over "free" stuff that the companies can turn into profits.

However, if companies are not common carriers and they own whatever is handed to them then they are subject to intellectual property violations, libel suits, fourth amendment oddities, and other violation of the law. A telephone company is not criminally prosecuted when land lines are used to break laws; a common carrier is immune to prosecution for what is transmitted. The lawsuits resulting from not being a common carrier could be bad for business.

In the long run, the market could sort this out. If some companies clearly are common carriers and some are not then consumers can decide. Or, it can stay muddled long enough for the gray area to become its own class according to judicial precedent, law, and the public.

Every attempt to refer chemical questions to mathematical doctrines must be considered, now and always, profoundly irrational, as being contrary to the nature of the phenomena. . . . but if the employment of mathematical analysis should ever become so preponderant in chemistry (an aberration which is happily almost impossible) it would occasion vast and rapid retrogradation....
Auguste Comte, The Positive Philosophy, 1853

    Keep an eye on Planetary Annihilation.

PROPRIETARY ENGINE TECHNOLOGY
The Planetary Annihilation engine was built for this project, so we could make the game that we wanted to make. Built by the same engineers who built the Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander rendering engines.

    Too right. If Xbox wants the profits from the Steam model then they will have reduce prices drastically.

    On the Xbox I buy new games for $50 ($60 minus pre-order discounts) and resell them quickly for $30 - $40. I buy 4 - 6 Xbox games per year.

    On Steam I buy games for $2 - $10, typically. I buy 15 - 30 Steam games per year. I never buy games for more than $30 on Steam.

    Also, Steam costs $0 per month to maintain my library. Xbox costs $5. If the Xbox locks me out of games that I own and that I can't sell then the Xbox will not be part of my gaming free time.

2009 Story out of Denver, Colorodo:

Kelly Coffman-Lee wanted to tell the world about her love of tofu by picking the letters for her car's license plate. Her suggestion for the plate on her Suzuki: "ILVTOFU." Department of Revenue spokesman Mark Couch said the letters could be misinterpreted. Coffman-Lee, 38, said tofu is a staple of her family's diet because they are vegan and that the DMV misinterpreted her message.

2012 Story out of Virgina:

If the Department of Motor Vehicles is going to let people praise certain religions or ethnicities on their license plates, it also must let people denigrate individuals of those faiths and nationalities. That's the opinion of a Circuit Court judge, who ruled last week that part of the DMV's guidelines governing vanity tags is unconstitutional. The ruling stemmed from an appeal from an Iraq War veteran who disagreed with the state's decision last year to revoke his personalized plates, which read "ICUHAJI." "Haji" is a common and often derogatory term for Arabs used by U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The veteran's attorney, however, said his client did not intend to offend anyone.

IT is not being picked on, in particular.
    Only the rich are getting richer.

Click that link to see
1) Corporate profit margins just hit an all-time high.
2) Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low.

    If quantum computing is the end of encryption as we know it, then soon the internet as we know it will end too.

    How will electronic communication be secured after quantum computing?

    Someone call Al Gore: We need a new internet.

Protecting an entire building from lightning is a solved problem. You need a lightning rod.

My aunt and uncle live in a hundred year old farm house. It has a lightning rod. Their butter churn has never had to be replaced due to a blown circuit.