[VLM]

Oh I wouldn't say its a small market...

Some googling around shows 8 million people in NYC. Figure about 1% are in the 1%, so you've got maybe 80K possible customers to split among all home automation startups.

On the other hand, some googling around shows 4 million commercial fishing boats worldwide. If your diesel boat engine microphone troubleshooting crowdsourced social network repair app drew in only 10% of ship owners, that would be a 5x bigger hit than the entire home automation marketplace. Also don't forget that ship owners who don't have money are what are called former ship owners... these guys have serious cash or they wouldn't be throwing money into a hole in the water like boat owners do.

[scourge]

you're right. go find a country where producers and true capitalists are rewarded and powerful, instead of just the middlemen and managers, and you'll be a millionaire.

That time will come. And once technology starts being targets are making these SMEs (fishing boats, smallholders, etc) lives easier, the world will make a big shift for the better.