Over the weekend, something up to 3000 blogs disappeared from the net. They were disappeared by Dave Winer. He didn't bother to announce or explain for a few days; then when he did, it was as a large MP3 audio-blog entry (a move that seemed calculated to limit the audience). (Jeneane Sessums has helpfully posted a more dialup and syndicator-friendly transcript.)
He's getting royally roasted over this, which is appropriate (when you know something is going to harm people, you have the option not to do it, and you do it anyway, you ought to expect some flames).
I feel curiously detached over this. Winer's reasons aren't sufficient, in my opinion, and it looks to me as though he's actively dodging responsibility for his actions. But I think I understand the place he was at when he made the ill-considered decision to dump the free weblogs. It's a place I've referred to as the "f*ck it moment": That place in an implementation-gone-bad where you just want to toss it all up and let the chips fall where they may. He got into a migration without having properly scoped it, and without a rollback plan. Thinking on his feet, and maybe late at night, he just said it: "F*ck it." And it was writ.
The worst blowback on this is on Dave Winer. People who've read his blog or dealt with him long-distance for years weren't surprised; some said things like "Anyone relying on Dave Winer deserves what they get." But now many thousands more people think he's a jerk; many potential employers or investors in his next venture will think he's unreliable, or won't have the people skills to pull it off. This is particularly important, because he no longer works for Userland, and his fellowship at Harvard is over. I also think he's a jerk (based on the "rude to the waiter" metric); but he's a jerk who's going to need to find another job, and he's not doing himself any favors here.
The people whose sites have been zapped can be accommodated, if Winer or Userland choose to accommodate them. But Winer's reputation didn't need any more tarnishing.
