Chris Byron takes a hard look at the finances of Salon and other dot coms in the New York Observer, and comes out wondering why they went public in the first place. The answer, according to the article, is so that the underwriters of their stock offerings could pocket millions of bucks in hard cash, which makes sense to me. Things really do look bleak for Salon, which is a real tragedy, because most of their product is excellent, and because I have several friends who work there.