PALO ALTO, Calif. (CNN/Money) - In the mid- to late 1990s I remember getting together with friends in the Midwest and being amused at how far behind the curve they were on this whole Internet thing. They were just learning about online shopping, for example, which we on the West Coast already treated as old hat.

Now the pendulum has swung, as evidenced by John H.'s reaction to my columns this year on the online DVD rental shop Netflix (NFLX: down $0.50 to $6.59, Research, Estimates), whose shares have crumbled lately. (I'd been bullish on Netflix's prospects at the time of its IPO last spring.)

"Adam, you were thinking 'left coastal' on the Netflix IPO," John writes. "I tried [Netflix] two years ago, loved the concept, loved the price and the lack of late fees, BUT everything gets mailed from and back to San Francisco. From Atlanta that can take more than five days. My actual costs, same as Blockbuster. Great idea if you live in the Bay area, bad idea for somebody elsewhere."

Of course, Netflix can fix some of those problems. But John has put his finger on some of the myopia that drove too much investment theory in the last half of the last decade. John's got a little more wisdom worth sharing: "Doesn't it seem ironic to you that the average American is loaded with debt (even called good debt) while they are virtually all losing money on 'good investments?' That may be the generation of now, but my grandparents never owned a credit card, nor did they consider any kind of debt good."

Well, certainly having a mortgage so that you can enjoy life with the rest of your paycheck seems like a good idea to me. But I couldn't agree more that it's just nuts to be loaded with credit card debt while speculating in the market. Thanks John.

Another subject that seems to resonate with readers is accountability. Writes Wesley R.: "In a time when so many are trying to avoid responsibility for anything, you admitted that you made a mistake and explained why." It'd be so great if we ever could hear the following from a Wall Street analyst: "Ya know, I completely goofed on this stock, here's why, and this is what I think will happen next, applying what I've learned."

Instead, we get excuses. We don't need excuses. We need advice.

Lastly, a note on Regulation FD, which I noted recently is working better than its original critics expected. Mel L. isn't buying it.

Recently by Adam Lashinsky Fool me once... It's about the economy...and it stinks Reg FD: It works!

"If FD has actually been enacted then how can you explain the huge drop in price and increase in volume of TXU the day before they announced the slashing of their earnings forecast?" he wants to know. "Volume on Thursday was four to five times the normal daily volume and the stock lost over 15 percent that day and 25 percent since the beginning of the week. Sure it plummeted even more after the story but 10 to 15 million shares were dumped prior to the rest of us hearing the Oct. 4 news. Makes Martha's little 4,000-share deal look kind of petty doesn't it?"

Whoa, Mel. I don't have the facts, but neither do you. Sounds to me like you're confusing insider trading by TXU executives with actions by any number of people who might have been aware of, say, the company's problems with its British operations.

FD isn't perfect. It dictates that management communicate with investors as quickly as possible. It doesn't stop other players in the know -- competitors in the U.K., perhaps? -- from getting into the act.

Adam Lashinsky is a senior writer for Fortune magazine. Send e-mail to Adam at lashinskysbottomline@yahoo.com.

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