Watching the 3/3/2012 edition of the Gillmor Gang, I was struck by the fact that people--I think it's wider than just the group on the show--have a tough time with the Doc Searl's VRM message because they always want to see it in terms of privacy, user control of data, etc. Partly that because we've framed the message that way and partly its because the media frames the message that way. Consequently people are predisposed to see it in that light. Moreover, people love to see a fight and privacy gives them one to watch.

In fact, what Doc keeps trying to say is that there's a better world that awaits us all. The fact that it's more respecting of privacy is a feature of that world, but it's not the sole reason to move to it. Rather, the reason to move to the new world is because its 100x better than the walled gardens and silos of what are in effect online mail-order catalogs and souped-up bulletin-board systems. The world where everyone has a personal cloud that interacts with everyone else's personal cloud as independent peers awaits us and yet we will sell it all for a mess of pottage.

The good news is that the architecture of the Internet is fairly robust and there's nothing about the silos that have been built that keeps some of the rest of us from striking out for the frontier and building a new town. That's how I look at Personal Event Networks, a new town on the frontiers of the Internet where a few hardy souls are hanging out at present, watching the numbers slowly grow and hoping that we can build up the roads so that others feel like the trip out to the boonies isn't too arduous and therefore feel inclined to chance the journey.