Rodent Regatta

A COUPLE OF STATEMENTS FULL OF INSIDER KNOWLEDGE OR POLITICS?
What lies behind each of the highlighted sentences?

It is amazing what desktop to Web software can do with people that are really leveraging themselves.  Something about doing things on servers is passive, weak, and remote.   Given trends in computing and networking it is extremely possible that in less than 10 years a person could run a personal site on their PC that interacts with a million people for not much more than what you pay today.  Why be on the wrong side of history (or spend the time learning about stuff that won’t matter in a couple of years)? [John Robb’s Radio Weblog]
By the way, I’d rather sell one, two or five thousand books a year for a product with integrity than… [Russ Lipton Documents Radio]