[jarek]

Replacing RSS with walled-gardens solutions from Internet Bigcos is another example.

In general I agree that ease-of-use is a big factor. Having said that, I was witness to decidedly non-technical teens in a mid-size town quite happily using mIRC in 2004, so maybe we're not giving people quite enough credit. If you tell people something is hard to use they'll believe you.

The real lesson is to look into what has been done and worked before and see how it can be improved if you're looking for "new" ideas and businesses.

[Joof]

My friend's mom used irc in the 90's / early 2000's for dating chatrooms. IRC can be plugged into the browser and embedded into applications seamlessly.

In contrast, I've never even heard of all the things mentioned above.