In my Digital Civilization class on Thursday we discussed the concept of a walled garden: a centralized authority controlling every aspect of a certain thing, and people must pay a price to have access to it. Apple was cited as an example of one such walled garden; its applications are often much more user friendly than those of PCs because Apple has control over every aspect of its products and is able to make them work together to the entry-level user's advantage.Dr. Zappala, one of my professors, mentioned that often people use Apple's entry-level features as a starting point, and then as they gain confidence, they move on to something a little more complicated. We also discussed open vs. closed government in this class period, and that got me thinking:
Don't we see the shift from entry level (autocratic: people have little say) to higher level (democratic: people have much more say) with government too?
We see in American history the shift from colonies under the British crown to an independent nation with a democratic republic form of government. Of course, we are not a true democracy, because to have every citizen give an opinion on every issue would be far too inefficient and cumbersome.
Or would it?
