So, some disclaimers: I sit on the ACM's Professions Board, and am a member of the CACM Editorial Board, where I sit on the board for the Practice section of CACM, also known as ACM Queue. That said, I speak only for myself here, not for ACM or the Professions Board or Queue Board.

Disclaimers dispensed with, let me say that I personally sympathize with the complaints, especially with respect to the practitioner. The Digital Library (DL) is, in a word, overpriced with respect to the practitioner, and I believe that the ACM can both increase its membership base and better (and more broadly) monetize the DL by using it as more of a loss-leader with the practitioner. The good news is that the ACM is quite receptive to this at its highest levels, and I believe that the chances for reform (at least with respect to the practitioner) are very good.

And indeed, this is the good news about ACM more broadly: the organization wants to change, especially with respect to the practitioner. One would be right to question this, but trust that I came to this conclusion only reluctantly and in the presence of overwhelming evidence -- a path that I outlined here:

http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2009/05/15/queue-cacm-and-the-re...

I would repeat here my plea from that blog entry: the ACM has given practitioners a new voice, but we must engage with the ACM to use it. We must move beyond merely "considering the ACM harmful" and point to new models that work for our profession and its society. In short, the ACM is willing to follow, but we practitioners must light the way!