I would ammend that to "$12k, a few weeks, and an incredibly powerful platform for self-publicizing his site."
As with most things Web 2.0, there's a catch-22 at the beginning; Nobody posts, so nobody visits, so nobody posts. Guy's PR ability to drive traffic to his site is certainly much more valuable than the idea or the technology.
Sure, any young hacker could have built a site like that for $12K and a few weeks...but that may not be enough to give it a similar chance for success.
As with most things Web 2.0, there's a catch-22 at the beginning; Nobody posts, so nobody visits, so nobody posts. Guy's PR ability to drive traffic to his site is certainly much more valuable than the idea or the technology.
Sure, any young hacker could have built a site like that for $12K and a few weeks...but that may not be enough to give it a similar chance for success.