Mike Hearn (the author of the original article) is a bright dude, who is well-known in several tech circles, which may explain the high ranking for the post here on HN.

I'm not intending to dismiss him outright; he may have an interesting follow-up. I guess I'm just much more optimistic about the web than he seems to be, and more critical of everything that's come before than he seems to be. I think Mike is about the same age as me, and probably has a similarly long history in tech, so I can't really pull the "hard-earned wisdom and experience" card in this conversation. I think I just disagree with him on this, and that's not a big deal.

One of us might be right. (But, I think betting against the web is crazy.)