Digital music’s bad boy was right
Where Real missed out is this counterintuitive notion where you have to give up control to get control. What I mean by that is, with MP3 anybody could write any software program you wanted to. You could go design hardware and create Web sites. You didn't have to drive up to Seattle and ask for Real's permission. So the notion of having open technology free to everybody that wasn't tightly and centrally controlled by a corporation is counterintuitive. Real was building servers and a player and standing on proprietary technology and what happened was that the rest of the world out-developed and out-innovated Real. This is what I saw with MP3. Hey, this open format allows anyone to build to it. The other guys said, "All roads have to lead back to me."
