People buy iPads to try a single app. They hand over hundreds of dollars for a device they do not need, chasing the glint of a feature, the hollow promise of an interface. The tablet sits in their hands like a stone, and they call it freedom. All around them lie simpler paths, cheaper paths, open paths, and they step past them, blind to reason, eager to obey the whisper of marketing. It is a small madness, quiet and ordinary, but it is madness nonetheless.