Pendulum or ratchet?

In the beginning, Altair made the 8800, and it was good.

Actually, it was *usable*, by determined hobbyists, and it was usable for very little. But it was available and purchaseable. The computers were stand-alone, and owner/users had to do everything for themselves. It was similar to being part of the first party in a colony. Where the first colonists had to chop wood, carry water, grow their own crops, make their own tools, and care for themselves and their families, the early computer owner/users had to build their own equipment and write their own software.

Later came the manufactured units: the Apple II, the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Commodore PET. These were easier to use (just take them out of the box and plug them in) yet you still had to write your own software.

The IBM PC and MS-DOS made things a bit easier (lots of software available on the market), yet the owner/user was still responsible and life was perhaps not a colony but a house on the prairie. And programs (purchased or constructed) could do anything to the computer, including disrupting other programs.

A big advance was made with IBM OS/2 and Windows NT, which were "real" operating systems that truly controlled "user programs". We had left the prairie and were in an actual town!

The next advance was with Java (and later, C#) which created managed environments for programs. Now we were in Dodge City, and you had to check your firearms when you came into town.

Apple gave us the next step, with iOS and iTunes. In this world, all programs must be reviewed and approved by Apple. You can no longer write any program and release it to the market. You cannot even install it on your own equipment! You must go through Apple's gateway iTunes. Microsoft is following suit with Windows 8 and the Microsoft App store. (Apps in Metro must go through Microsoft, and you can install only operating systems that have been signed by Microsoft.)

All of these changes have been made to improve security. (And let us recognize that Microsoft has been consistently pummeled for exploits against Windows and applications. The incentive for these changes has been the market.)

Yet all of these changes have been moving in one direction: away from the open range and towards the nanny state.

My question is: Are these changes part of the swing of a pendulum, or are they part of a ratchet mechanism? If they are the former, then we can expect a swing back towards freedom (and security problems). If they are part of the latter, then they are here to stay with possibly more restrictions in the future.

Relying on Microsoft (or Apple) to filter out the malware and the bad actors is easy, but it also limits our choices. By allowing a vendor to act as gatekeeper, we give up a degree of control. It is possible that they may choose to restrict other software in the future, such as software that competes with their products. (Microsoft may restrict the Chrome browser, Apple may restrict office suites. Or anything else they desire to restrict, in favor of their own offerings.)