>Sorry but this conference is a creditable action by these three who took over when the last remaining US VFP conference was about to end. They kept it going until now. There is no victim.

I do not see where I can obtain the conference materials from 2012, 2011, 2010, etc. I wasn't there. Didn't even know it existed. And today when I find out about these amazing speakers, these amazing subjects, these materials that I could benefit from obtaining, I cannot share in any of the presentations, or even the presentation materials from the conference (at least not without searching down the individual speakers and contacting the to see if they have it somewhere -- something that is not a guarantee) because I wasn't there.

And then there are items like the free software production ($349 value) given to attendees. I cannot partake of that software. I wasn't there. And neither can anyone else who wasn't there. It winds up being a loss for all who weren't there. It is/was only gain for the people who attended.

There are definitely victims.

It's just that those victims have never been thought of in that way (as victims) before because the mindsets in play have been on the traditional, non-digital-world perspective of the big event where you attend and get the gold ... and if you don't attend then you don't get the gold and you're on the outside. It's just been the way of things in the past.

And my comments in this thread relate to the central idea that all that (prior inertial set of mindsets) should change because the focus on what's important should change. It should not be on the big event (a money making endeavor, contact growing amongst the elite attenders to gain friends amongst more of the elite), but also that all of us as a community (great and small alike) should humble ourselves and offer up what we know to all, for any developer to gain from. It should be our outpouring gift of that which we were blessed with in the first place. A giving back of that which we were given, so that others might partake, grow, and become more tomorrow than they were yesterday by our kindness and love.

I'm asking that our focus be on that mutual growth, one to another, equally, and without expensive elite clique events.


>If people don't want to spend on the conference and prefer to wait for free material, your wishes will come true: the "hoarding" will end because the conference center won't hold the booking without commitment by July 2. If people do want to spend, then as you say, digital stuff is not used up just because somebody presents it at a conference in Arizona. Afterwards it's just as "free" for your use as it ever was. So what then needs to happen is for somebody (you?) to prevent the "genocide" by taking action. Otherwise it's just as the Elizabethan Nursery Rhyme says:
>

I've read this three times and I still don't understand what you're saying.