I wanted to ask Fred Wilson this question: "What happens to your users' tweets, blogs, podcasts, check-ins, discussion threads, Scrabble games, photos when the companies go out of business?"
A number of people jumped to a conclusion about why I was asking it, and took it to mean something that it didn't mean.
I'm telling you. I speak from experience. People take this stuff very personally. If the pioneer users in 2004 didn't see it coming, and didn't prepare for it, today's users especially won't see it coming. If you want to have an industry left after companies fail, we need to start doing something about this.
The companies aren't doing it. If anyone would know about it, it would be Fred, because he uses so many of the products the way they were intended to be used. Because he is both influential, very widely listened-to, and is respected as a user if he says there's a problem people will hear it.
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