Paul Graham’s articles are both insightful and amusing. His recent article is released on late November and touches a recently hot topic: Web 2.0. In this article, Paul Graham discussed the three big components of Web 2.0–Ajax, democracy, and not dissing users, and pointed out that Google was a pioneer in all those components.

The first element of Web 2.0 is AJAX, which empowers web-based applications.

Basically, what “Ajax” means is “Javascript now works.” And that in turn means that web-based applications can now be made to work much more like desktop ones.

The second element of Web 2.0 is democracy.

The most dramatic example of Web 2.0 democracy is not in the selection of ideas, but their production. […] And now that the web has evolved mechanisms for selecting good stuff, the web wins net. Selection beats damping, for the same reason market economies beat centrally planned ones.

The third element of Web 2.0 is not to maltreat users.

The ultimate way to be nice to users is to give them something for free that competitors charge for. […] The most successful sites are the ones that figure out new ways to give stuff away for free. […] If you can figure out a way to turn a billion dollar industry into a fifty million dollar industry, so much the better, if all fifty million go to you. Though indeed, making things cheaper often turns out to generate more money in the end, just as automating things often turns out to generate more jobs.

Putting them together

Web 2.0 means using the web as it was meant to be used, and Google does. That’s their secret. The web naturally has a certain grain, and Google is aligned with it. That’s why their success seems so effortless. […]

Google doesn’t try to force things to happen their way. They try to figure out what’s going to happen, and arrange to be standing there when it does. […]