reactionary? nah.
Matt's placing some blame on himself for TiVo-ad backlash posts like mine. The PVRblog post that I linked to was picked up and syndicated across many blogs, and Matt feels like he could have kept the negative reaction from happening: Behind the website: when you're at the helm of a shitstorm. Even having a more detailed view of the feature now, I still feel the same way. Will the genuine concerns of weblog authors be dismissed as irrational or reactionary every time they're voiced against a bad business practice? I hope not. (Though maybe I'm just being reactionary to the reactionary label?)
Dude. You just blew my mind.
I still think it's a bad way to go about it, but I guess I can understand how they came to that bad decision. I really wish they'd pursue other avenues for becoming profitable, but once all the details came out I didn't feel comfortable being the guy that would lead people to trash their tivos and sue tivo until they stopped. My outrage was lessened, and everyone was turning to me to rally the troops.
TiVo definitely got the message loud and clear that users are sensitive to advertising in their anti-advertising device, so hopefully they take it to heart and say something next week.