Regulatory approval to innovate is a more desperate issue.

Ya know - I used to think that but its a lot more cloudy then just deregulation - powerful groups have a mutual assured destruction pact with each other. The EV1 (flawed example I know but stay with me) altered a market too much for the vested markets (auto parts supply, oil change shops, oil companys ect...) for it to be accepted. The vested market alliance kept with the relationships it knew.

One of the reasons that IBM fell in influence was due to the desire for the mass market to want to have th evil empire to fall - it was a social background that created the realizations that empowered the market to move beyond the mainframe modal.

Even with innovations the ground is littered with the bodies of companys that had the right idea but fell because people did not have a connection that the innovators success was tied to there own destiny.

I guess what I am trying to say is the regulators are simply one part of a puzzle - a social realization that ones own prosperity is connected to the success of a new market configuration and then the new market needs to create products that capture the passion of the consumer in a non rational way - involve yourself in this market and you will prosper, do not and you will personally fall.

All the deregulation in the world cant ignite that passion within a person - and all of the digital theorizing in the universe amounts to a rain dance for a non existent reality.

I am still hopeful - but looks like we do not have too much time.