Half your post is about mobile providers, which I don't mention at all. Then the other half is how companies have the right to chain their customers in order to make money, which is fine because there is a sucker born every minute, so if they want to be chained for the sake of convenience, go ahead!

What I lament is that, different from the PC market, there is no relatively free option for consumers that don't want to trade freedom for convenience.

Consider this: even desktop Windows 7 gives more freedom to its users than Windows Phone 7.

Both Symbian and Maemo/MeeGo let you fully control your data and personal information, as well as being efficient and relatively frugal regarding your data connection. Maemo/MeeGo were even open source and you could tinker down the source code well. Now both are on the death row.

In other words, Nokia had two platforms, and both let you control your information and data, and even one was mostly open source.

They went from that to a platform that funnels everything through controlled channels. How sad.