It's funny and target even if he is trying to mock the reader. I think that this quote actually works pretty well for your earlier post about Blogs and such repeating the same old news about Google Valentine and such:

"I gave up two years of my life writing about gadgets for this site. Waking up every morning at 5 AM, chewing up press releases to find the rare morsel of legitimate information, chasing down "hot tips" that ended up being photochops of iPods with reflections of genitals in the touchscreens. Oh, and the worst: fielding emails from PR parasites eager to suck away precious time in a half-hour phone meeting while the Senior Vice-President of Smoke Blowing tells me about how his company's software—based on an idea cribbed from Google—is going to change the way I look at something I didn't care about in the first place. (Inevitably, "forever.")

And you guys just ate it up."

Lol.

I think many of us, are simply trying to find that nugget and present it to our readers. Basically being human filters for news items. Some times it works out, sometimes it does not. But this post, lol, he is only it it for the money:

"These guys want me to write a weekly column, but I hate consumer electronics, I hate marketing, and I hate you people, because you're all so dumb. If you're lucky and I need the money, I will."

I had someone complain about my blog where I write about SEO issues. I don't write about Google's Valentine logo and similar schlock, but I can't always post a gem either. I'm not in it for the money, just trying to help people by pointing people at a few interesting topics since I figure that many of my readers don't have the time or in some cases the back ground understanding to go with reading all of the various blogs and forums out there and applying that knowledge. Eventually they might gain this understanding, and they might even move on, but my subscriptions and page views is fairly constant so some are certainly returning on a regular basis or encouraging others...

He's right, but his timeline is a bit off. It wasn't always the way it is now. Back when tech was emerging, the hot stuff was life-altering, and worth pursuit. It's lately that our learned addiction is exploited as a marketing target.

Also note that the same savvy tech consumers who paid the premiums back in the day have been on to this for years now, and no longer dole out the R&D dollars for the latest gear. The market is still supported by the current buyers Johnson calls idiots, but those are not the same bleeding edge gadget buyers as before, and a lot more marketing spend is required to keep them buying nowadays.

Exactly how I feel about cell phones. I don't own one.
He's so right on the nail.