I'm 62 and way way to old for this.
I wonder how much of this social network rage is due to the age of the individuals.
I've developed a number of compartmentalizations in my life and I don't want to merge them all together.
When you're young you may only have 2: family & school friends and you might be idealistic enough to think that you can merge them or that your family is too dumb to look at your social network.
Then you add your work compartment, and then your spouse's compartment and then your children's compartment and then your religious compartment and then your non-school friends compartment and then your lover's compartment and then your hobbyist compartment, etc. etc.
With this many compartments you don't really want all these people to know everything you do or a way for them all to get into contact with each other. Not that the world would end if they do, but why open yourself to comments and probing on stuff that isn't anybody's business except who you choose it to be.
I suppose one could try to keep some compartments insulated from others but for some people that is too much bother or risk.

Sharing things with people has two components: what it does for the giver and what it does for the receiver.
Most people recognize from life experience that the giver usually expects something back even if only a thank you.
That is part of the motivation not just "altruism". I pose that pure altruism, where the giver expects nothing back, rarely exists.
I further pose that a file sharer who takes somebody else's work and gives it away for free is expecting somebody else to think well of them for giving it away. This happens only in the mind of the giver, of course, because they don't know for sure what the receiver is doing, but it still makes the giver feel good. If all the receivers accepting the gift send an email to the sharer saying s/he is a jerk, then it is unlikely the sharer would continue his/her work.
Sharing something on the internet that you got yourself for free is probably nothing but upside in terms of emotional payback, unless the RIAA comes knocking.
Sharing something you bought yourself is less likely to continue unabated but there is still that mental expectation of a payback.
File sharing as altruism? I say file sharing as cerebral j/o. But it does feel good. I've tried it!

Hands-off approach to business yes, but hands on approach to one's private life, sexuality, religion, access to information, etc., etc. I.e. more freedom for the wealthy conformist and less freedom for the poor or non-conformist.
The average standard of living of all but the uber rich has declined not increased since the Reagan years started.

I think what he was saying was that Linux (in the larger sense of GNU/Linux/open-source) is trying to do something that has already been done. It isn't original in the sense of creating something nobody had thought of before. It may be able to do the underlying architecture better and cheaper but it hasn't done the desktop metaphor well enough to make a dent in the Apple/Microsoft market.
Now comes Android, another attempt to do something that has already been done. Lot's of back-slapping congratulations on the ability to copy but none for originality.

So it feels like he owns it and can do what he wants with it but actually he can't do what he wants with it. At least he actually owns it!

Now I'll admit I'm a Mac fanboy (in a good sense) and an M$ hater (in a bad sense) but this comment really clicks with me.

I've found iTunes frustrating to use and I've found movement of data between iTunes, GarageBand and iDVD obtuse when first learning it. In one application the files are in one place in another application they are in another kind of place and you have to go dig through menus to import the files. Once you've learned it, it works but it is far from intuitive. I think that Apple software has been skating on the edge of unfriendly lately altho there are certainly startlingly innovative interfaces being created by them.

I've been a programmer for 40 years and I'm f*ing tired of continuously battling computers. That's why I switched to Macs a while ago at home. When I'm doing my stuff at home, I don't want to have to worry about some bleeding registry or parameters buried in some /etc file that I can't find or read. But when I'm at work, I don't want to have to dig through a hierarchy of menus, dialogs and "Advanced" buttons to find out where to change something. When configuring system software on an M$ machine I don't know whether to laugh at the incompetence of the creators or cry in my frustration. On a Mac it is marginally better but still convoluted. Since I don't have to do it so often on a Mac, it doesn't hurt as much.