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Hey @Marty69 , I’m surprised by this question. There was nothing like the old TAC on the entire world wide web. Now, you just gotta ask yourself: “why?”
The answer is simple. Because it isn’t a good business model. In fact, it’s dangerous. It could open you up to liability big time. But, Tony and Levi were young and wanted to do something “cool” and “nice”, even “personal”. Well, they were very successful, perhaps more successful than they originally intended. Or maybe not. But as both they and the business grew and matured, they needed to conform to conventional business practices. Those practices have been forged in the fire of courtroom law suits. We live in a litigious society where people want “justice”, which is really a lame cover for “revenge”; and they want something for nothing because that’s what selfishness is all about.
If you read some of the vehement complaining and blaming by a number of mentors in the Mentor Zone of the old forum prior to the change, you would see just how selfish and shortsighted “normal” people can be nowadays. You could also understand why Tony and Levi needed to break the ties that associated their business with the unregulated forum, and worse, potentially far worse, the VOMs.
The truth is that Tony and Levi, TAC the business, TAC members, and all those who enjoyed the forum and all those who enjoy the VOMs are better off this way. We have more freedom without the concern of being in conflict with the interests of TAC. And TAC is better because it can be more focused on it’s “mission statement”, and that is to help people grow as guitarists (guitar geeks).
Now, we have a forum like the old TAC without any worries about conflict of interest. And it runs on the same, simple “rules”: be polite! And we have this new TAC which is more focused on teaching us guitar skills.
By the way, you missed the question: “why did they break off the “Song Vault”. I won’t answer that question here, but it is similar: focus. And I’m not speculating. Tony and Levi explained all of this to us more than once. No, they never used the word liability or anything related. But that’s why they are successful, because they are tactful to the point of skirting issues. That’s why I have so few friends, because I dive headlong into issues.
MG 😀