I interact with non-technical people almost every day, and I can relate that this is a concern that they have been far more vocal about lately. I don't really understand how it became a concern, since I'd expect that they don't follow startup news like I do, nor do they tend to be early adopters that would have been burned by a service closing.

Every single of the half-dozen or so times that I've recommended Quickbooks Online to someone, their major objection has been that they don't want to rely on it because they're concerned that Quickbooks will just up and cancel it one day. (Or break it.) Just a few days ago, one of my clients asked my opinion of online backup services, especially Carbonite. Her first question was what she would do if they didn't stick around. She's a pretty sharp individual, but not tech-savvy, and even though I explained that in that case she could just sign up for a different service, she still decided it was too risky to rely on.

For me, after reading HN for a while now, I've gotten a toin coss mentality towards whether or not a particular startup will still be around in a year.

My hunch is that several classes of web-based startups are headed for trouble and don't realize it yet. If you're building a game, if you're building a Facebook app, if you're building something that people don't feel like they have to rely on, you're fine. But, if you're trying to address a major business problem or build something that people will have to trust for the long term, I think your pool of available customers is shrinking, not growing.

The funny thing is that what the customers want is lifestyle businesses -- businesses that the founders are totally invested in and wanting to work on for a very long time -- and lifestyle businesses catch a lot of derision in startup circles.