How Not to Handle a Business Dispute…

Things like this are why I find the Internet is much better than television…

It seems that Dave Winer and Rogers Cadenhead are currently engaging in a little business dispute. How do I (and the rest of the blogosphere) know this? Because Rogers posted a letter from Dave’s attorney on his weblog yesterday. The ultimate result, of course, is another round of the endless “Winer-bashing” (in the comments to Rogers’ message posting and elsewhere) that seems to be one of the favorite pasttimes in the blogsphere. {sigh} The more things change, the more they always seem to stay the same.

Here’s a good question about all of this that I haven’t seen anybody ask: “Why did Rogers post this letter?”

From what I am reading, this whole controversy is a private, contractual matter between two parties that unfortunately deteriorated to the point where the attorneys got involved. What is Rogers trying to prove by publicly posting this letter (which should have just been handed over to his attorney)? What advantage or leverage is he trying to gain? How is this action going to help resolve this dispute any faster?

Look, I know we live in a world full of “reality TV” and “court TV” and “Judge-This” and Justice-That” television where people put the pathetic stupidity of their private lives on display for the whole world to see, but gimme-a-break, actions like this are totally unneccessary. If these guys agreed to handle this matter privately with their attorneys, then by all means that’s where it should have stayed. For the life of me I just can’t understand why people feel compelled to post this type of information online for all to see. Maybe I’m missing something here.

Hey, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I don’t know either of them personally or professionally. I read Dave and I read Rogers, because I like the topics that they write/talk about. The important point though is that I do believe all of us here in the blogosphere are way too enamored of the freedom that these personal publishing/communication technologies have given us. As a result, we feel that every aspect of our lives should be put out for full display. I’m sorry, but IMHO, that is no excuse to air all of our dirty laundry in full view of the public. Some things need to and should be kept private. This latest conflict is one of them.

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