The problem with me posting one of these things at 1:00 AM on a Sunday night and then talking to my family, taking a shower, and logging in to HN "one last time" prior to bed is that keeping up with comments from 3:36 AM is kind of difficult. Oh bother.

Well, I hope y'all like it. In particular skip down to the bit about information scarcity -- I think that one is broadly applicable to most of the businesses here. (Capsule summary: You can use something which you can create in abundance but which your users/customers perceive as scarce/valuable and trade it to them in return for things which have business value for you.)