I was reading the kottke blog and I had also independently come across the “Getting Real” book that the 37signals guys are hawking over on their site. I combined that with the stuff that the guys over at edgeio are trying to get up and realised that we are starting to see a subtle change in the way that technology savvy people are conducting commerce.
During the dot-boom a lot of smart people came out with great ideas that no one really wanted to pay for. They started companies, things got over hyped and eventually the bubble burst.
Today, smart people are coming up with great ideas which people want to pay for, but in order to limit costs they are looking for payment processors which allow them to hawk their goods without going through a whole heap of paper work.