The private sector ain't perfect

Feds get beaten over the head with, 'If you only did things like the private sector,' and it isn't totally fair. The federal government is big, but the private sector -- when taken in total -- is huge. And there are all sorts of folks out there doing it very badly... even the big guys. Generally when people say, 'why don't you do things like the private sector,' what they are actually saying is why don't you do things like the very best of the private sector -- the top 1 percent.

So I want to point to a particularly bad online experience -- and it is with one of the big guys -- Time magazine. As you may have expected, I love magazines. I get a lot of 'em. (I always joke that I am one of the few houses that gets The Economist, The New Yorker and People and Us Weekly -- and everything in between.)

As a Time magazine subscriber, I get to view archives, back issues, etc. But you have to re-log in every single time. And they don't allow you to use a user name and password. No! You have to enter your subscription number (Yeah! I have that at the tip of my fingers!) or your address, etc. And then I used to get a very good e-mail newsletter from Time that told me what was in that week's issue, but you can't find it. And this comes from one of the biggest publishers out there.

As we all know, this stuff just isn't as easy as it may seem.