merlin30 - 10:59 pm on Jun 8, 2003 (gmt 0)

"This is natural free market tendencies at their finest"

Couldn't agree more.

The irony of the "new economy" rubbish from a couple of years ago is that the Internet is the re-incarnation of a very old economy - the laissez faire economy suggested by the likes of Adam Smith hundreds of years ago.

The Internet is probably the most powerful vehicle that such an economy has ever been given. (Hence the plethora of anti-capitalist hate sites actually campaigning for the destruction of the Internet!)

Because of this I think the Internet is an even greater opportunity for small business to flourish than existed before the (commercial) Internet. However market principles are in fact now in sharper focus so you need to be offering real products/services that actually bring value to the consumer. Not everyone who owns a website can win; but remember big business has created huge markets, and within those markets there are thousands of niches that can be exploited. Big business has supplied the canvas, small business can paint it. And remember, people appreciate the painting NOT the canvas.

That is why it is absolutley imperative that Google takes out the "fake" commercial sites offering no added value to the consumer but taking from the revenue stream. That situation is economically unsustainable. It is for these reasons that I passionately believe that search should be left to the markets - not the politicians.