The quickly shifting roles of devices and services has some of the best minds of the tech world struggling to figure out which are the razors and which are the blades of the connected consumer economy.

In an interview this week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, “The iPhone has proven that you can sell a phone with a subscription. The contract cost is greater than the cost of the phone. So what do you think: Do those prices remain higher from AT&T and those guys? Does the hardware become free?” more