Absolute vandalism. A public good has been built through a long term investment, but because it cuts against the interest of the commercial backers of a political party (commercial backers who have had every opportunity to grow a similar, competing, asset), the asset is wilfully destroyed. The politics of vandalism.
Rails has allowed me to move from being a product/programme manager to start up owner / developer in six months. I've managed the development of products using PHP and .NET technologies, but when it came learning to code myself, Rails enabled me to learn and iterate quickly. Ruby is beautiful, and the Rails community is both prolific in terms of making the gems you need and responsive when you have problems. 12 months ago I was coldly agnostic about frameworks, I am now a bit of a fanboy.
It occurred to me that I'd ended up somewhere obvious as I hit reply - but two days in a strip-lit barn in Earls Court can do that.
But to be fair, in book publishing the problem is deeper than web search - you need to be a better curator because the consumer investment is bigger.
Hitting a search link is close to free for the consumer, but accepting a book recommendation is relatively expensive, both in time spent sampling and pounds sterling. So good curating has greater value.
I'm going to be less happy if the third book on the recommendation list is the one that hits the spot if I've had to purchase and start to read recommendations one and two.
I just spent a few days at the London Book Fair - my headline from that would be 'Publishers are terrified of losing role of curators of the written word, in a world where anyone can publish'.
What publishers currently seem to be missing is that in a world where the barriers to publication are reducing to zero, good curating is going to be the commodity that I, as a consumer, will value most highly. By good, I mean 'feels correct to me.'
The problem is volume. First person to discover a means to curate at high volumes is king.
tldr - you are spot on - be good at high volume curating and there is your fortune.