Via the blog of old Well pal Bruce Umbaugh I learned of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s new publication “The Customer Is Always Wrong: A User’s Guide to DRM in Online Music.” It does a great job of picking apart the breezy claims of several leading music services. People want to be freed from the hassle of DRM, and these services know it – that’s why they make the overblown statements that the EFF has so nicely debunked.
The Well, venerable “virtual community” (that’s what we had before blogs, you whippersnappers), is for sale. I’ve had an account on the Well for eleven years this month, so this is of some interest to me. Salon has been a great corporate parent (many Salon staffers are longtime Well members), but the ups and downs of their pennystock life make everyone uncomfortable.
Who knows what will happen – perhaps members will chip in and form a co-op. I’ve got, like, $432 in my Paypal account… At least we’re past the bubble years, when some flash-in-the-pan internet company would have bought it, with a wave of press releases followed by an attempt to “monetize the userbase” or something.