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This post regurgitates the most dangerous idea: "IT'S DIFFERENT THIS TIME"
As in: "The bottom line is that the Web makes it so much easier to start and run a business " - it's different! Not like the old bubble! DON'T LEARN THAT LESSON!!!
In fact, I'd argue starting and running a real business is pretty much as hard as it's always been. People are confusing a shift in expenses with a revolution in economics.
thing about saying "It's different this time?" Sometimes it really
*is* different -- and refusing to acknowledge that is just as much an
example of blinkered, head-in-the-sand behaviour as the opposite.
Was there a distributed server cluster like Amazon's S3 back in the
first bubble? No. Or if there was, it was orders of magnitude more
expensive than what startups can currently afford -- that's a real
difference in economics. So is the existence of Google Apps, and of
Amazon's EC2 and Simple DB, and even of Basecamp, for that matter.
Those things make a difference -- maybe not enough to turn a dumb idea
into a smart one, but enough to make it easier to try them both out
and figure out which is which. In the last bubble that didn't become
obvious until after the IPO.
And, see, it wasn't different this time! :-)
Again, you're confusing one component with an overall process. That's a very standard evangelist ploy, Since the laws of mathematics haven't changed, to a good approximation, the net results will never be different.
150 years ago, were their railroads like [BigName]? 100 years ago, was there TV and radio like [BigName]? 50 years ago, was there cheap air travel like [BigName]? All of these created a few new big businesses - and also lots of failed businesses. It's never different, in that there's always people running around saying that this time it's different.
or so worth of economic progress so quickly. Nice work. "All of
these created a few new big businesses -- and also lots of failed
businesses." That pretty much describes every technology ever
invented since the industrial revolution.
Your comment reminds me of Warren Buffett's famous saying about how
the airline industry has been a net destroyer of capital since the
Wright Brother first flew at Kitty Hawk. The upside? We get to fly
places instead of taking boats and cars.
Obvious that the technology is here to stay, no deaths from start up hyperbole, and good ideas get out regardless of the economy.
Millions of small businesses are doing things more efficiently due to the net, billions of consumers lives are better.
Great post, those pundits have myopia. You have it right
the wrong angle. with the exception of a handful of
very successful companies, most web 2.0 shops are
small fry. here's the problem: the CPMs utterly blow -
and unless you're a onesie, twosie shop and can keep
expense way low, it's tough to make a buck. more power
to anyone who can do that but then you're not talking
about the next google here. second point, in a
recession, who do you think is going to get whacked
first? that's easy. advertising-dependent startups.
i'm not saying the web 2.0 landscape will get
decimated but let's not close our eyes to what's
happening on the ground. also,.lots more enterprise
companies are getting into the space and they have
staying power just in case the economy heads south.
saw this post apropos...http://www.news.com/8301-10787_3-9929415-60.html?tag=nefd.top
http://www.mappingtheweb.com/2008/03/20/there-i...
Cheers,
Aidan