yeah well, my response was a little tongue in cheek. i tend to watch the videos online. people don't go there just to watch stuff. they go there to network, and get free stuff.
contrary to what the current conference/technology trend may dictate, technology is not a rockband where the live show is better than the studio recording.
Yes, I've been to several prior events and the number of folks that used to be Devs has certainly migrated to folks that are in for the free goodies.
I have to believe eliminating the "free goodies" will definitely return it to a dev conference vs. an Oprah event. Maybe this will be the year. This year the system said they found a ticket (actually several times), but apparently they were just dangling it in front of my nose, because I couldn't get through payment gateway, Google Wallet.
Each year registration is like a game of Google Plinko.
I'd be curious to know the # of user requests that brought the Wallet to its knees.
The online videos are great. Although it would have been beneficial to sit down and talk some of the teams in person. Anecdotally I have heard that in talks with engineers on different teams you can learn a lot of little tips and tricks that aren't made widely available to the public because of a lack of interest and/or ability to make the information useful, or because they are little quirks in the system that can be helpful if you know them, but if everyone does then would cause problems.
contrary to what the current conference/technology trend may dictate, technology is not a rockband where the live show is better than the studio recording.