I don't know that under-charging small companies last all that long. When we first started out we were greatly undercharging, and after a few years almost went

I don't know that under-charging small companies last all that long. When we first started out we were greatly undercharging, and after a few years almost went under. Luckily for us we figured it out just in time. Nobody should aspire to be a replaceable unit in any case. If Joe down the road can replace you, yeah, it is going to be tough being a small company. There is another side to this that I think is worth exploring. For a long time capital has had a significant advantage over labour (see rising inequality). I think we might be at the inflection point where the capital costs of so many businesses are dropping to the extent that capital's advantage is eroding. I'm thinking of bootstrappers and so on. Obviously capital still helps, and the relative advantage isn't uniform across all sectors or industries (if you want to do something for consumers you probably need capital; likewise space exploration or bio-tech), but I think a sizable number of people are in the situation where they can own their output.