But Block is completely misinformed because the situation is no different today than it was two years ago, or five years ago or ten years ago. Nothing Google has done has changed any of this. BEsides, Mac OS has always come with a mail client built-in. I use it, but there are still some commercial email clients making money. I'll concede it's not a market I'd get into nor that I think would do very high volumes.

If there's any argument to be made about dumbing down internet usage we need to give props to Facebook who completely own Google or any other service-based net destination. A lot of people replace free or commercial software via Facebook.

But that aside, 10 years ago there was no iPhoto, but not too many people were buying photo viewing and managing applications either - because no one was taking and accumulating digital photos. Even with free solutions today, there are a lot of folks out there making a living selling Photo management products.

Plenty of people are happy with what comes with the OS and don't need anything more. That hasn't changed in a long time. What has changed is that there are far more people using computers today and the market for plenty of software is opening up, not closing down. Take a look at Microsoft's revenues for non-Windows software. Take a look at Adobe's. Take a look at how many more indie software developers exist today and are making a decent living versus 10 years ago. Or even 5 for that matter.

My strategy going forward still revolves around niche markets and will include hardware in a big way as well. I think the Mac App Store is going to do well, I just don't know if it's going to do well for all the developers.