Jokes aside, I can see all the tumblr users here, and well, even when this is VW and there's never too many people in the comments, you're still just a few, too few to make tumblr to seem popular for web standards.

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I sense an intellectual revival of common sense and a change of thought in the near future. The coming years will see the rise of "fundamentals based" start ups in the valley, built on a solid foundation of a viable business model.

A few years ago, going to valley events, I felt so isolated and almost like an alien from another planet, trying to talk to others about ways to make money on the internet. People would rather talk about their "viral loop" metrics and social this, social that. By reading this and many other blogs/threads/talking to people in the past few months I can sense change in the air. A lot of people are still fanatical to the bitter end, like the Axis powers at the end of WW2, but a lot more people are evolving. A handful of founders will still make bank using the anti-business plan mentality, but I still think there is much better odds in a fundamentals based approach.

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Do any of the "kids" working on Tumblr even remember Geocities?

Is this some kind of fucking recursive loop on a sub-decade cycle?

Back in the 1990's, the Web burst out of the gates at the speed of light. Now it feels like a carnival ride that jumped the rails and just goes ker-klunk, ker-klunk in one place.

Can we put a stake in the heart of the idea that everyone's a celebrity? That everyone's worth looking at? That everyone's worth reading? That everyone is worth reblogging? HOW ABOUT RE-THINKING!!?!! EH?!!

I can't wait 'til Yahoo! flames out. If I were the founder of a revenue-free "business", I would take the money and run under the current circumstances. Of course, Karp et al would never abandon their users to Yahoo! They'll fight to defend your right to shout into the electronic echo-chamber/abyss.

Ugh.

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