We've reached a point where leaders have realized that they can literally flip their supporters the middle finger, call them all idiots, and still have people consume their product. It used to be that CEOs used to at least try to hide behind PR image management consultants, but these days? Well, to quote our former US president "I could shoot a man in the middle of Fifth Avenue and people would still vote for me." And he's right. I'm not trying to get into a political discussion, more a societal one - this is where we are as a society - where leaders can do awful things and yet people shrug their shoulders and keep doing what they're doing as though nothing happened.

Louis Rossmann made a really good point about all of this too. A 2-day blackout is perhaps worse than doing nothing. All it does is prove that people will go away for a day or two, then come back and continue on like nothing happened. It proves that no matter how angry you make your customers, they'll be back.

I'm really glad to see so many communities have committed to going private indefinitely. I'm also glad to see just how many users are leaving the site "permanently" (one can hope they remain true to that). The only way that a company will learn is if they suffer consequences that actually affect their bottom line. PR doesn't mean jack these days, only profit.