I was here in the Valley for the original Bubble, and the situation now is nothing like that was. Back then people were saying there was a "new economy" driven by the Internet, and that productivity was going to go up like a step function, which justified higher p/e ratios for any company that could claim to be a participant. If you had money to invest you felt like you had to have most of it in the stock market, because money parked in bonds would miss out on all this growth that was coming.

Back in the 90s I was sure there was a bubble happening, and was notorious for telling everyone to sell. And yet I remember that even I thought it was dangerous to have money sitting in bonds. I don't think that now, and I don't think anyone else does either.

What's happening now is a lot more localized. A few professional investors are paying higher valuations for startups than they were a few years ago. But the number of participants and the amounts of money moving around are both very small compared to the 90s. Plus the companies are better. In the 90s, it was the dumb leading the dumb: smooth-talking MBAs were raising money from hapless LPs and investing it in startups run by other smooth-talking MBAs. Now it's Yuri Milner investing in a company run by Mark Zuckerberg.

"And finally, there’s the related notion that anyone who doesn’t like Apple’s rules can pick up and move to another platform, like Android. Which is ridiculous."

What? Ridiculous how? This claim is ridiculous.

Suck it up and use Android. You'll live. I did.

I'm the one quoted there (RJ). It's worth pointing out that I've not worked at Last.fm for a couple of years, and the chat log (which I posted) doesn't mention Last.fm at all.

That said, I still think my analysis is bang on.

What Apple have done will really cripple anyone reselling/licensing content (Spotify, Last.fm, Netflix etc).