quote:
if it does not happen in the private sector, the government will eventually get around to doing it themselves.
That action in and of itself is inherently evil. A free-market economy will always balance itself out. Government interference is bad, period. Sure, the IM networks will eventually have to become open, but this should not be done by the government. Once people realize that they don't like having 5 IM services installed so that they can talk to everyone, they will abandon the closed networks and flock to services like Trillian, forcing the closed network IM's to open up for the fear of losing all business.