This Wal-Mart analogy is ridiculous.  Carriers have a self-imposed shelf space problem if anything (just like AOL did for Internet services in 1999). The Internet is a super-mega-infinitum store which has very few limits on how people set up and offer services; the carriers’ networks and the devices their customers CHOOSE are now able to access this world so any blame for “choking off” off this access lies squarely at the carriers feet.  Consumers will not sit around waiting for carriers to figure out how they can take a pound of flesh in this new world - look at music sales; we have seen this movie before.

Open up your network, focus on value add around the billing relationship, customer data, location and other proprietary aspects and enter into revenue sharing models with all the companies that float to the top.

I concur with Scott.

The carriers operate as a monopoly and block access to competing products by abusing their position within the delivery channel. This same behavior leads to lawsuits and anti-competitive fines in the OS (ie Microsoft) world so why is this behavior ok for carriers?

Customers can only access their limited and poorly designed portals, and if they are allowed to go elsewhere they have to pay a kings ransom.

It is the subscribers that should choose what services are popular, just as sites such as eBay, Google, YouTube, Flickr and Etsy emerged on their own merits within the internet. Furthermore this does not prevent niche sites from operating profitably at a smaller scale.

Wal-Mart is not the only choice to consumers in the real world. The ability to access niche and very high quality items from speciality shops is still there. We do not all shop at Wal-Mart and some of us make it a principle to avoid it.

right…

when will the carriers accept the fact, that it is not important *what* the user buy, but *how much*....

So, carriers:
...open your platfroms,
...allow users to personalize their main menu,

... and be pleased by the miraculous increase in revenue!