There have been many discussions over the recent problems at Digg, Andy of Marketing Pilgrim, Muhammad of Pronet, and Michael of Wolf-Holf have all commented. I have made my less than glowing opinion of Digg known in a previous post. In general, I don’t find the articles typically found on the front page of Digg to be of any particular use to anyone over the age of 20, or with interests outside video games and the latest hack. There are some which claim the traffic Diggers can drive to your site is worth pandering to the Digg clique, but I have never agreed. The traffice is short-lived, and Diggers don’t buy.
In the present situation, we have been provided a clear view of the true nature of the Digg beast. Recently Digg management chose to remove an article posted on Digg, which revealed the decryption code required to unlock copyright protected HD-DVDs. To any business person, who has been around the block and understands the severe problems one can face when messing with copyrighted material, especially from a very wealthy and notoriously litigious industry, the move made perfect sense. But the move was seen as censorship by the Digg asylum and they promptly began flooding the Digg site with story after story containing the same decryption code. Eventually Digg gave up, and issued a statement they were no longer going to remove any articles, despite the potential ramifications. By giving so much power to individuals who don’t care about Digg, nor have the cognitive abilities to comprehend the purpose of law, Digg signed its own death warrant long ago, it is only now they have to suffer it. Lesson learned by all.
This reminds me of the Wizard of Oz in a way. We all remember those creepy flying monkeys, (they used to scare the living be-dangles out of me), as they would fly around doing the Wicked Witch’s work for her. Well the Witch always assumed she had total control over these monkeys, then one day a hack of a monkey showed up with some of the Wizard’s treasure, he just decided to grab it on his own accord and share with the other monkeys. The Witch was furious. She didn’t want the heat of the Wizard focused on her, so she promptly returned the treasure and hoped trouble would be avoided. Well this miserable hack monkey didn’t like being disgraced in front of the gang, so he and all his flying monkey friends started stealing everything they could from the Wizard coffers, and quit paying attention to the Witch’s warnings at all. In fact, Doe-Doe, the talking, flying monkey, told the witch exactly where she could stick her flying broom, and the delicate balance of Oz crumbled. Predictably the Wizard crushes the Witch and her castle in the near future. Now the monkeys have little treasure, but no power or place to live, which was previously provided by the witch. Stupid, stupid flying monkeys (even Doe-Doe), and what are flying monkeys going to do with treasure anyway. Think it through monkeys.
