It's interesting - and occasionally terrifying - to see what's happening in the Web2.0-Social Media-Cloud Computing world. There are many startups trying to be the next Google, the next Flickr, the next Reddit - but they are actually trying to become the next Yahoo, and of course they often don't make it. The reason might be that it's not really possible what will be the next big thing, but it's pretty easy to see what is the previous big thing.

Recently I've been thinking why Web2.0 startups are teaching Internet users not to pay for anything. Isn't it devastating for the industry? I know, the industry is doing very well, but in the long run we create an environment where everybody will have to make a living form advertisements. Wouldn't it be more honest to say that Twitter works hard for you and they deserve a penny per month for their efforts? Reading the valuation story of 37singnals (www.37signals.com) made me realize that it is indeed a brilliant strategy to make things for free and let the market speculate.

Customers have never had it better on the internet. Developers are more and more obsessed with customer satisfaction and in the same time they have the means to learn what users want and they can satisfy these wants nearly immediately. It is all about agile development: moving fast, correcting mistakes and understanding users better with unprecedented speed. The only problem is that while users never had it better developers never had it more difficult to produce loyal users. Users are spoilt kids, just like I am right now.

The recent debate on whether Cloud Computing is a revolution or just an annoying ideology reveals how obsessed we can become with our own challenges. The owner of a large data center might find that the "cloud" is an expensive alternative with less control and a small enterprise might want to carefully think about its hosting and managed platform options. But the real hero of the Cloud Computing Era will be the talented teenager who will develop the next YouTube or Twitter in a few hours on a cloudy Sunday afternoon.