From the 90's through the early 2000's it was so easy to make large sums of money online that a much larger number of people accumulated lots of cash. Out of those people the creative ones brought us new niches, website ideas, promo tools, programs etc. The industry thrived.
Fast forward a few years and it's obvious who knew what they were doing and who didn't. Everyone that lucked out in this business without knowing or at least learning anything worthwhile crashed and burned hard. Some names will pop into your head. A lot of them invested in outside businesses that failed as well, give a stupid man money and you know the results. The handful that knew what they were doing all along and those that picked it up along the way have gotten bigger and bigger. They have either cashed out big or still run things today.
I still see a lot of creative ideas from people on GFY but they don't usually have the resources to try new things. They have great ideas but the programs hanging on to the old don't want to hear them. Because they weren't lucky enough to start when a page listed in Alta Vista brought sales the same day they have had to work harder to make a living and don't typically have $100,000 or more to get some out of the box shit up and running.
A lot of old timers like to use the line of reasoning that if you were as smart as them you'd make the same money and could do your own thing. You must be stupid! In truth, no matter what anyone says, it has gotten progressively harder to make huge sums of EASY money to give people the opportunity to invest in industry changing ideas.
I don't blame existing programs for sticking with their 10 year old business models. Most of them have enough to retire no matter what happens, it is expected that they'd be lazy about innovation. Unfortunately, this has caused the entire industry to suffer from a lack of options since hardly anyone is investing in new ideas. Those that do usually keep all of the money for themselves these days.
