From pg's essay: (opened my eyes to this)

"Wealth is what people want. I don't mean that as some kind of philosophical statement; I mean it as a tautology.

So an idea for a startup is an idea for something people want. Wouldn't any good idea be something people want? Unfortunately not. I think new theorems are a fine thing to create, but there is no great demand for them. Whereas there appears to be great demand for celebrity gossip magazines. Wealth is defined democratically. Good ideas and valuable ideas are not quite the same thing; the difference is individual tastes."

http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html

At some point, a man, regardless of his convictions, has to stop getting into arguments with reality.

Bread and circuses it is, then.

The people who want this will want it for about 15 minutes, then they'll want something else. It's a fad.

If they pay for it within those fifteen minutes, that is all that matters.

Only if your goal is to win the lottery. What's left after the last iFart has puttered out?

The Chia Pet is still selling. The Pet Rock isn't.

But I heard the guy made a million dollars.

so someone is going to focus on building that next thing people will want; and however stupid it will be it will probably profit.