For most people, a phone is a Feely portal, giving you distraction everywhere you go. Which isn't to say we didn't have distraction everywhere we went before, just that now it's refined and honed and personalized.

I agree with that. Still, it's often amazing what people can do when they have the technology opened up to them and the motivation is there, and Facebook has a strong interest in limiting those possibilities. Personally, I'm not so much afraid of 80% of folks using this kind of phone, but I am afraid of the creep of legislation and industry practice that serves their experience at the expense of what mine could be. I don't care if Facebook or Google is the Internet to most, but I do care if it becomes the internet for me as a matter of standardization. Inconvenient possibilities are what we need. But, I think Facebook Home will be short-lived. It's very tough to keep giving kids what they want.

Dunno. Life has always been about the agile preying on the slow. It's only through the development of a social conscience that we mitigate the blowback somewhat. I'm not a caveat emptor kinda guy most of the time, but any scam on earth starts with the suggestion that the mark is somehow privileged above others and follows with an invitation to malfeasance.

IMHO this is a constant burden for anyone that studies history and has a conscience. I'd argue that the 'good guys' need to be able to play both sides, depending on the current state of things. Personally, I think a material definition of wealth has confused the shit out of things since the end of feudalism slapped a big question mark on every free man. If you haven't, I highly suggest reading Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. In addition to being a pretty good read, it lays out the idea for Whuffie, which is basically a sentiment-based karma type of economy. I'm aware it's not 100% Doctorow's idea, but he presents it in a way that IMO starts to make some sense in this day and age. If I could build anything right now, it would be Whuffie.