Americans are finally following the rest of the world toward the controlled interface of the cellular phone.

This has profound implications. Mobile carriers are not Internet Service Providers. They control where you go and what you do on their networks. They act as gatekeepers, and take a proprietary attitude toward every bit transmitted.

The difference between the Internet and a mobile network is like the difference between a downtown city center and a shopping mall. There is nothing inherently wrong with a shopping mall, but it is controlled by the mall owner, and everything which happens there must be aimed at making the mall owner (and his tenants) money, all assumptions of liberty to the contrary.

In other words, cellular turns the Internet into a shopping mall, neutering it, and making it solely a means toward a commercial end.

Thus, is has been difficult for mobile (Americans call it cellular) to gain the kind of reach and use that we find even in Africa. But that is changing:

• Apple's ROKR has legitimized cellular music, so now Sprint is taking on XM and Sirius through Real's Rhapsody, streaming 100 stations at $7/month.
• EasyReach, Orb and Avvenu are turning PCs into the equivalent of servers, which deliver e-mail and files to cellular clients.
• Cellular carriers want to create movie-like "ratings" for their content, so they can sell porn.

Given these trends, and their acceptance by the mass market, is it any wonder why Congresscritters would like to turn the Internet itself into nothing more than a shopping mall?

The problem, of course, is that a shopping mall is sterile, with high barriers to entry, a place to spend money. It's segregated, in every way. It's not a mirror of society, unless that society is dying.

And before you start complaining, I like shopping malls.

But they're no substitute for life.