...also HN today kind of looking like fuckedcompany[1] back in those days.
My take away is that we may have a mild recession, but the likelihood of a massive recession is a lot higher than it has been in decades.
Which companies go bankrupt now?
Then, it was because {value} = {idea} + {Internet}.
Except nobody knew how much value the {Internet} part added, because the Internet wasn't done solidifying in terms of capability (e.g. "AJAX? What's that?") or connectivity (PocketPC!).
Now, the Internet is a pretty well-known quantity.
So while Uber and Lyft and Masayoshi Son's portfolio might be massively overvaluing things, the fundamental nature is well understood.
Some stupid companies will die, but there are lots of companies making actual money doing actually useful things.
And the primary casualties of the dot-com bust are all so consolidated that the tools-impact will likely be lesser too. Amazon/MS/Google aren't going to go bankrupt over softer cloud demand.
1. Hype around new technologies is sometimes warranted. Electrification, for example. It wasn't clear how long it would take for these weird new internet companies to really start turning a buck, but after a few years spreadsheet parameters were updated and the whole financial industry saw the writing on the wall for most web companies.
2. Many profitable and completely unfunded web companies primarily received their funding from other web companies that were. This set off a cascading reaction of bankruptcies and massive layoffs. Advertisers, publishers, tool makers, and many others were in this second category of legit business that lost the vast majority of their customers.
One of the downsides of an inflating currency is that there is a general feeling of "well I have to invest my money somewhere!" that is hard to overcome and leads to bubbles until the sky starts falling, so I agree with you that psychology is a factor; but the fundamentals still dominate in the medium to long term.