The bubble burst was not an accident. The whole dotcom boom was built on speculation, like the stockmarket. It was so new and exciting, everyone was willing to take a chance! I mean who really thought that they were going to buy thier groceries over the net? As consumers we still like to touch and feel things! I really feel that alot of the people took advantage of the VC money and used it to get rich quick, without really benefiting the Internet as a whole. If you look statistically, many of the "next big thing" companies are gone, ePets comes to mind. That damn sock puppet! Looking at how companies are today, it is more of a "build it and they will come" approach much like a traditional business model. I think that this provides long term stability for growing companies.