Very true. Sadly, while "companies" play a very large role, ultimately, it's people. The dynamics are, I think, somewhat interesting. The essential pattern app

Very true. Sadly, while "companies" play a very large role, ultimately, it's people. The dynamics are, I think, somewhat interesting. The essential pattern appears like "theme and variations", woven endlessly through human history that I'm familiar with. It has been possible, in brief periods, to imagine that perhaps we had moved past some of it ... grown a bit, on the whole. But, it's really difficult to imagine we might ever reach a sort of "Star Trek: First Contact" ... "economic regime"*. Circumstances continually evolve and even relatively subtle changes in policies and principles and such, at scale, can make a big difference. One key problem is simply that the cohesion and principled behavior and all of that, borne out of challenging times** and the desire to make things better for ones offspring, so easily leads to less purposeful more entitled people who can even end up resentful at what previous generations accomplished, the philosophies they espouse, the plaudits that they have engendered... and purposefully wish to go against that grain. But, to get a bit away from this unintentionally increasingly high-falutin' "jibber jabber" - the phases of commercial internet development adhere to fairly typical (modern) human patterns. First: optimism and practically "free money" ... an initial gold rush, real attempts at building real value ultimately drowning out the charlatans and general gold rush "carnival". Second: a sort of plateau, "professionalization", coalescence, big companies consolidating and buying up (additional) innovators, etc. Third: the land in terms of current resources mostly staked out, various little (and mostly legitimate "fish") utilizing the big products and services to provide smaller products and services ... a sort of completion of an "ecosystem". Fourth: increasing trouble making additional money, creating real distinct new value, economic cycle getting past peak, probably inflation issues, etc. ... plus, crime and illegitimate activity more and more present ... tools and opportunities for charlatans, more and more ... Even established big companies having issues with their models, etc... The "only real hope" is the next big innovation... This comment is overly long, and yet, hardly adequately covers the shallowest surface of the topic. But, eh, best I can do this moment. It's unfortunate to watch these kinds of cycles, and easy to have hope that "this time it'll be (more) different". But, no matter how quickly technology changes, humans seem more stuck when it comes to "evolution" (even accounting for changes in communications, education, etc.). And, really, ultimately, some people realized even 1000s of years ago that almost all of this is a kind of futile "chasing the dragon". * https://youtu.be/PV4Oze9JEU0?t=2m28s https://youtu.be/PV4Oze9JEU0?t=2m28s ** E.g.,https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8763215/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8763215/