I suspect you "got it" all along. It's the thin edge of the wedge. I think it is fair to point to the wedge's existence and possible to do so without being a prescriptivist.
Unfortunately even open standards are not immune to muscle flex. Take the web, for example. IIRC, the various web mark-up specs are hammered out by the W3 via RFC's. Even so, these have to be implemented to mean anything in practice. Netscape, a great product in early iterations, like many others, was, as we all know now, doomed against the proverbial 800lb gorilla implementing -- or not implementing -- standards at will.
Along such lines, it is unlikely -- but also not impossible -- that one day, for all intents and purposes, viewing A'goN web pages, and other activities on the web will be only possible using de facto pay-per-view browsers. That -- and similar ways in which gatekeepers emerge exerting direct or coercive force on players old and new -- would be, candid[e]ly, considered the "best-of-all-possible-worlds" by some. It's not a vision to whose realisation, in whatever form, I will willingly contribute.
Unfortunately even open standards are not immune to muscle flex. Take the web, for example. IIRC, the various web mark-up specs are hammered out by the W3 via RFC's. Even so, these have to be implemented to mean anything in practice. Netscape, a great product in early iterations, like many others, was, as we all know now, doomed against the proverbial 800lb gorilla implementing -- or not implementing -- standards at will.
Along such lines, it is unlikely -- but also not impossible -- that one day, for all intents and purposes, viewing A'goN web pages, and other activities on the web will be only possible using de facto pay-per-view browsers. That -- and similar ways in which gatekeepers emerge exerting direct or coercive force on players old and new -- would be, candid[e]ly, considered the "best-of-all-possible-worlds" by some. It's not a vision to whose realisation, in whatever form, I will willingly contribute.