Monday

Techdirt: The Formula



If you read Techdirt very often, you know that they are the first to catch it when a corporation (or government, to be redundant) is trying to hang on to a business model that is losing relevance. While I often find Techdirt insightful, they too often use the formula "Why doesn't $company stop wasting resources doing $X and do $Y instead?" Where $X is something like filing a lawsuit, which often involves a lawyer on retainer or a few thousand in legal fees (i.e., a drop in the bucket of a corporate budget), while $Y is something like investing millions and billions in building new cable/telephone infrastructure. The implication is that $X is somehow keeping them from doing $Y, and that the two are comparable strategies, which is rarely the case. It would be like me saying: "Instead of whining about the flaws in corporate business strategies, Techdirt should fund startups to compete using their superior ideas."

That said, I like Techdirt most of the time and can generally count on them to be one of the first to break significant tech news, they could just use some fresh material.