You've got the timeline precisely backwards here. The move towards making computing less and less like a motorcycle and more and more like a train was _not_ pioneered by companies like Google: they were the ones fighting it kicking and screaming for years. The market demanded that things get less and less hackable and more and more shiny, or at the very least rewarded those (like Apple) that felt that way too.
You guys don't need to come to the defense of Facebook and Google. This shouldn't be about blame. The point is that there's a problem. We need to fix it. Let's stop pointing fingers at each other and point them at ourselves.
I think that inaccuracy in and of itself is a problem when it comes to anything worth discussing. Not all of us see the world through such us-vs-them culture-warrior blinders all the time.
The point I was making that the market is demanding it (as opposed to companies pushing it on users) is entirely material to the discussion.
