I'm not saying that security holes are nothing to worry about, as I am no less irritated by buggy programs than anyone else, but the alternative might be worse.
Why is that? I don't see why this has to be true.
A device maker which makes completely open machines is going to get out-competed with low-margin knock-offs, or generic branded copies from places like china. This is good for the consumer, but not good for a business's bottom-line. This is why there are very few branded computers these days (at least, desktop). You can count them on your fingers.
* Good will among the community
* More familiarity with Cell software development for clusters (although this was behind a VM)
* Import tax savings in certain territories due to the box being classed as a ‘computer’ instead of a ‘games system’.
Which do you think was most important? (hint: it’s the last one) Conversely, when the ability to run Linux was pulled a hypervisor exploit had been discovered. Now the cost equation tipped back the other way. The import tax hit was still there, but the machine had halved in price since launch so that wasn’t as painful. The community had moved away from PS3 clusters as they weren’t energy effective any more: not as painful. The major pain point from removing it was losing the goodwill of the community, but when balanced against the piracy implications they made their decision.
Personally I think they should have patched the hypervisor holes and kept the functionality, but you can see why they decided to remove it.
Walled gardens and eroded digital/computational liberties are here to stay, and even more so in the future. The trend has been that "hacking the device" has become harder and harder, and devices have became more and more closed and controlled. I don't expect this trend to change any time soon. I sure as hell wish it did, but why would it?
We are living in very interesting times indeed...
No such thing. There is no protection once someone has physical access to the hardware.