Jason vs. Dave

The whole Jason vs. Dave thing at Gnomedex makes a whole lot more sense, if you read this post from Fred Wilson’s blog.

Since I was there, I didn’t really appreciate Dave Winer’s perspective. I was on Jason Calacanis’ side.

Dave blogged,

Bottom-line, he needs to figure out a way to build the company so that many others can profit from it. Otherwise I don’t think it has a prayer against Google, which we like less and less as a company, but who basically offers an equitable proposition to the users of the Internet, who the Gnomedex crowd represent in a loose kind of way.

That was really nice advice, if you think about it. We make money from Google because they have a system that makes it possible. Will Mahalo provide a way for it’s users to profit? I don’t know, and I think that might have been the point Dave was making. His point was overshadowed by his inappropriate shouting during Jason’s speech, but in hindsight, I think he was really trying to help.