Paul Graham on "Web 2.0"
As usual, Mr. Graham is spot-on with his analysis. I do feel that "Don't Maltreat Users" is a wee bit harsh. Afterall, the challenge in the boom years was getting something/anything to work let alone worrying about usability/design issues. I'm not knocking usability, but if the application doesn't even run properly (ala' Ask Jeeves) or doesn't have sufficient uptime, who cares if the screen scales or if your being too burdensom on your users with intrusive ads and/or registration systems.
Don't skip the footnotes either. Some good gems of wisdom and links lie therein.