But Ken Auletta gives Mossberg a lot of credit for having opinions that literally everyone online has today:
On March 2, 2000, Mossberg urged consumers to boycott the new Sony digital music player (the Music Clip), because it was “designed to satisfy lawyers obsessed with protecting the copyrights of the record labels—including Sony’s own label—even at the expense of simplicity and convenience for consumers.” He went on, “It treats every user like a potential criminal, and tries to impose new controls on music people paid for years ago.”And so on: Cell phone carriers are fascists with their content, etc. Auletta tries to link this to Mossberg's growing up in a New Deal household. But this isn't residual FDR-ism, it's common sense. Evidenced by the fact that digital rights policies are about the only thing that Atrios and Instapundit agree on. And Engadget. And BoingBoing. And half the most popular blogs on the 'net.
None of the criticques Mossberg makes in the article are exceptional. Even, I, late adapter that I am, noticed that iPods were wonderful in 2003.
It's a very fun read in a techporn kind of way, though.
