Radio Forgets to Pay the User First

I was sitting here mulling over what I may put in my letter to FCC Chairman Martin to discourage the XM-Sirius merger when I stumbled upon this piece by Tim O'Reilly. I'm still not clear on the satrad and Web 2.0 connection, but I really appreciate his take on "paying the user first".

In a world where you get increasing returns from network effects, putting users second, or third, or fourth, in the hierarchy of your concerns is a losing proposition.

That certainly is a problem I see with many businesses, high tech or not. Like this proposed merger, it is all about creating value for investors and not for creating reasons for customers to pay their hard earned money for a product that is useful. So it is with XM and Sirius. We customers only stand to have less choice, higher prices, and obsolete equipment in the face of this merger.