And there is more. I suspect much of the reasoning behind the Dot.Com boom was involved in the idea that if the prod/dist system of many different kinds of transactions could be controlled and managed through software development and control via the internet, then our Dot.Com boomers could make millions. And they did. But they could not exercise enough of a monopoly control on their narrowly chosen interests to make it work. In other words it wasn't just a fancy stock hype. There was some potential there. And I am almost certain they will back... It is just too tempting. And behind the headlines, big capital interests like banks, did make millions applying some of the dot.com tech to their existing systems, so as to milk their customers in newer and stranger ways.
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Computers are, as I think Joseph Weizenbaum observed in "Computer Power and Human Reason", the ultimate command and control machine.
This, coupled with their protean nature (one minute providing feedback data for anti lock braking systems, the next handling real time financial transactions and the next navigating the cold expanse between the worlds... and so on) is the heart of the technology's appeal to business as ad campaigns clearly state.
"Get command of your business" is a common theme of business software advertisements and it's not an entirely idle promise. Indeed, one of Microsoft's stated goals (marketing hype of course but worth noting for the inevitable impacts) is that their software will one day be so smooth, you won't need clever people to run your IT infrastructure. Which means, of course, you won't have to pay technical employees well.
This is foolishness but the fact they can even make a halfway credible argument in this direction (something other industries - autos, for example, could never do: "imagine, a car so clever, your mechanic can be a total dumb ass...") is an indication of the aura of control that surrounds the machine.
This is why, as you say Chuck, some form of Dot Com like frenzy is likely to occur again at some point - if not in the US, then someplace else where people still believe in the idea of the future (even if narrowly defined in market terms).
This is also why, as you stated in your post, open source offers an interesting challenge to (quite literally) business as usual. By inserting rank and file collectives into the command and control stream at the (self-propelled) levels of creation, quality control and assessment you're doing a bit of (admittedly gentle, at least so far) perceptual monkey wrenching.
Not a revo of course but surely not trivial.
.d.