This one clears things up. Here's where I think you "went wrong" (so to speak) in the first article: you spoke of a possible downturn in the economy as a "dot-

This one clears things up. Here's where I think you "went wrong" (so to speak) in the first article: you spoke of a possible downturn in the economy as a "dot-bomb". To us startup types, that says "party's over, give up your projects, go home". I know, you didn't mean that. Today's post made that clearer. It was the language you picked that caused a lot of the backlash. That, and questioning whether ad-based services are much more than a fad. :-o Truth is, a downturn (self-prophetic or not) is always a possibility, and preparing for to insulate yourself is just good common business sense. Saying "hey, it could happen, nothing's a sure thing" would resonate with everyone here, I imagine. Getting (perhaps too) specific and suggesting that the "Web 2.0" market (whatever that exactly is) will die Any Day Now is bound to get people irate because: 1- there is no actual reason to believe that there's anything going wrong in the web economy 2- you cannot have a 2000-style crash when the stock market isn't very involved with the businesses 3- just about everyone here is heavily invested in working the web economy, and so we don't take kindly to what we perceive as groundless doom-and-gloom. Most of today's startupians want a buyout as an exit strategy -- or to become self-sustaining for a while. To me, there isn't a lot of difference between your John Chow (www.johnchow.com), successful blogger, and your self-sustaining web business (I'll point to plentyoffish yet again). Er, except Chow doesn't make the kind of cash that the dating site does. Me, I'm not sure I'd mind that much. I'll take small success over none. The 2000 dot-bomb happened because of three interconnected reasons, in my estimation: 1- all the dumb, no-profit businesses burned through their VC money 2- the stock market got impatient and wanted to see some profits 3- VCs got spooked and stopped funding That won't happen again. Something else? Maybe, but it will have to be a cause quite different. Myself, I'll bet if something causes us heartache, it will be a downturn in the economy, most likely caused by the population believing that we're "due" for a downturn in the economy. As PG would point out, as long as we keep trying to find ways to create wealth (not so much by making literal $$ but by improving the world), downturns cannot last forever.