I don't 'hate' companies that see advertising as their only revenue source, I just question both it's effectiveness in running a sustainable business and the hesitation that software developers working as founders have in charging real money for the quality services they are building.
I don't count media companies, as I'm not sure of any ycombinator start ups focused on media (in the sense of being blogs, such as tech crunch or hpost, etc.), and those list of technology service-oriented companies you list, it's fairly questionable how great any of their business models really were/are.
Everyone likes to point out Google and YouTube, but they forget google owns online advertising, period. And YouTube never really made any money.
Don't get me wrong - it's great being an acquisition target and it's a great way to make some quick cash, but I think generally founders under-estimate the potential of their own company of being self sustaining and being very profitable with a paying customer base.
I don't count media companies, as I'm not sure of any ycombinator start ups focused on media (in the sense of being blogs, such as tech crunch or hpost, etc.), and those list of technology service-oriented companies you list, it's fairly questionable how great any of their business models really were/are.
Everyone likes to point out Google and YouTube, but they forget google owns online advertising, period. And YouTube never really made any money.
Don't get me wrong - it's great being an acquisition target and it's a great way to make some quick cash, but I think generally founders under-estimate the potential of their own company of being self sustaining and being very profitable with a paying customer base.