I'm not seriously suggesting that two guys in a garage set out to build an index of web pages like Yahoo's - Yahoo has hundreds of people for god's sake.
Seriously though, I do hear what you're saying. But I used the words chip and niche. If I could chip a tiny niche out of Microsoft then I'd be a happy man.
I guess my point, which I didn't make at all clear, was that everyone's trying to get a slice of Facebook, Google, Salesforce, 37signals (all smart companies) when they could be going for these dinosaurs.
Almost every webapp I've used is a recreational activity compared to some of the problems the above companies solve.
Particularly amusing in comparison are the antivirus vendors, Autodesk, CNC, and Solidworks. They are gen-you-winely complicated.