Editor’s Note: Sony, Slayer of Progress

“This week I’m going to switch gears a little and declare an
enemy for all makers, hackers, and innovators — it’s in a
very different space: the consumer electronics industry. And who is
this slayer of progress? Sony.

“If you’re over the age of 25 you likely have a long history
with Sony. They were the company we all had something from. If you
only had $20, Sony had the best $20 headphones. If you have $500,
again, Sony usually had the best. From their world-changing Walkman
to a Sony Trinitron monitor, Sony has been part of our lives in one
way or another for decades.

“In this article, we’ll explore Sony’s long history of going
after legitimate innovation, hobbyists, and competition. Sony,
we’ve been keeping score.We’re tired of you picking on people who
want to program their robot dogs to dance. We’re tired of you suing
people who want to run their own software on something they bought.
Sony has made so many mistakes with technology choices (Memory
Stick, Magic Gate, UMD!), perhaps they’ll end themselves soon
enough, but we’d like to think there’s at least someone there would
wants to avoid Sony spending its last days sending DMCAs to anyone
who tweets “46DCEAD317FE45D80923EB97E4956410D4CDB2C2″.”

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