Do we have to pay Microsoft & Co for ever?

Sitting at a slow computer gives a bloke a lot of time to ponder about the direction of computer science. The newspapers and the trade mags seem to delight in informing their readers of new developments in technology, often before they become real products.
The effect of reading this breathless, futuristic hype is that we never seem to be able to feel comfortable that what we have is the best deal we could have done. Part of the problem is the way computers are sold. The latest models and assorted peripherals are changing so rapidly that sales people have long given up trying to come to grips with any particular product.
Ask someone who works with computers how often it is that they are able to find an after-sales helper who knows even as much as a regular daily user. Of course a lot of tech support people start off as unhappy customers.
It would be easy to entertain the thought that the whole computer industry is a device for endlessly fleecing the poor consumer. Of course you could just say, "No, I'm not going to throw away (there being no such thing as a trade-in in computer land) my trusty old 'Snailspace 87' for the all new 'Harebrain 2000'.
But they've got you by the software. Try to hang on to your trusty old banger for too long and you'll find that it can't run the latest programs. Funny that.
It might be fun to work for one of those (American) companies where the troops are assembled and the CEO says, "OK guys, we need more dough. Get back to the drawing board and make me an update for MindStuffer 4.2 that is sufficiently different so we can call it MindStuffer Pro™ and charge those suckers $375 each."
Let's see now. That's 100,000 users world-wide times $375, wholesale minus commissions, kick-backs etc etc ... Oh what the hell, it's a boss-load of money anyway!
Will we ever be able to get off this ride or must we go forever round in circles between programs that need faster machines and machines that don't work well except with the latest programs?
There's even room for nationalism in this story. How much money does Bill Gates need? Is there a way that a country can shake itself free of the Microsoft Corporation or are we going to fill its coffers until the end of time.
Alright, he's a smart cookie and he was in the right place at the right time. He owns, more or less personally, the basic operating system for just about every computer on the planet. But couldn't we say, "Thanks Bill. We've paid you several Billion dollars for your work and now we'd like to take it from here ourselves."
"We'd like to give our own techno-buffs a go at developing your idea further." (Actually, Windows® is a bit of a dog of an operating system anyway and Bill's been darn lucky to have got away with it for this long.)
So there you go, that's what I reckon. Bill will have me hung, drawn and reformatted in a trice if I tried to get the idea of software piracy up and running so I guess we'll be keeping him in hamburgers and Coke™ for some time yet.
Paul Cockram: May 1998