“DOT COMS MUST DIE!”

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that phrase, or phrases like it, over the past month or so.

It seems more and more Seattleites, in and out of the computer and Internet industries, have become ever-sicker of these companies–and not just of Microsoft either.

These various observers are offended, in differing amounts, by the real-estate hyperinflation, the SUVs, the traffic jams, the condos, the “market price” fancy-pants restaurants, the new chain stores full of useless luxury tchochkes, the cell phones a-bleating in theaters and parks, the rude and humorless public behavior, the slavedriving conditions and disposable-commodity treatment placed upon employees, the destruction of so many funky little places, and all the other civic ills that are popularly blamed, justly or unjustly, on the 300 or more “new economy” companies in King County.

Dot-coms might not be dying. But they’re not as robust as they were six months ago either.

And their decline and/or fall won’t be pretty. (Layoffs, closures, paranoid management behaviors, stock roller-coasters, cash-flow hiccups, pension-fund bankruptcies, avalanches of neo-modern furniture flodding Goodwill stores, you know the drill.)

But it could be entertaining to watch.

Besides, what else did you expect? Most new retail and other business ventures fail in their first five years–even when they’re backed by big stable corporations. Why did so many day traders and CNBC viewers mistakenly assume this law would be wiped away just by putting a “.” into a company’s name?

But they did. So did venture capital outfits, ploughing billions into business plans that would look dubious to any sane observer.

The result: A national economy, particularly the urban economies of a dozen specific metro areas including ours, increasingly organized around a “new prosperity” where many of the most acclaimed corporate “success stories” have lost millions and expect to lose millions more for the indefinite future–if they have one.

MONDAY: Imagining a post-Net-stock-crash world.

IN OTHER NEWS: The guy who’s spent the past half-decade or more defining himself as the anti-BS, anti-hype crusader joins Monday Night Football. Huh?

ELSEWHERE:

• If only certain Seattleites could get over this blind MS loyalty obsession and transfer it to a more appropriate target, like a sports team or rock idol….
• Have movie comedies become just too icky-gross?…