So I just watched the video of Dave’s talk. While my overall impression is that it’s 51 minutes of my life that I’d rather have back and I don’t agree with several of his conclusions, I don’t see anything inherently wrong or hurtful about it. I don’t think it painted anyone in a bad light beyond fair criticism. He was clear about what was his opinion and what wasn’t.
I do think he’s flat out wrong in his belief about marketing budgets of regulated utilities. I know for a fact, that PG&E spends tons of money on marketing. Sure, they aren’t sponsoring coffee bars at NANOG, that’s not their target market. Neither are the IXPs running television ads (at least none that I know of) since that’s not their target market. PG&E does do lots of TV ads, billboards, and other consumer-oriented marketing. I’m sure if you were to attend electrical industry trade shows, you’d find they have a presence there as well, though I have no idea, it’s not my industry. I do think we could all benefit from more cost-effective ISPs and I do think that models like MICE, SIX, and SFMIX are better for most of their participants than the ultra-expensive premium exchanges with branch offices in all the major markets. However, I suspect that in the long run, market demand will actually sort that out. Owen
