One of the least appealing conventions of our internet culture is the whitepaper. The idea that the addition of a .pdf extension somehow adds authority to the ramblings of every self-described "SEO expert*" and "social media evangelist" is an idea that's as pernicious as it is ridiculous.

For an especially blatant example of this you have only to go read the new whitepaper on bandwidth caps over at GigaOM. Or, better yet, go read my response to it over at TechDirt. I didn't get into any of the economic arguments contained in the paper — that's not exactly my area of expertise — but I have a sneaking suspicion that lines like "it is impossible to determine a product's unit cost before determining its price, since unit costs change with volume" are complete nonsense.

I haven't had time to write at TD for a while, but this piece of crap was sufficiently infuriating that I couldn't help myself. Even if you're bored silly by the topic of bandwidth rationing, Wikipedia plagiarism is always good for a laugh.

* Seriously, anyone whose business cards feature the letters S-E-O in sequence ought to be thrown into a fucking volcano. With the exception of people from Korea, I guess.