As for not "hard problems," there's nothing disreputable about completing an achievable unit of concrete work for your own edification and profit. Maybe hard problems are hard because they don't fit into anyone's idea of an "achievable unit of concrete work." So, earning experience and capital by solving smaller problems to create tools which may help solve bigger problems is a respectable and intelligent approach to solving hard problems. On the contrary, in my experience, an obsession with a "great ambitious idea" without an obsession for solving an innumerate small, immediate problems which arise from that great idea is the "most important ingredient" for non-productive, self-deluded thrash.

As for YC companies: I pay for Wufoo and Dropbox. I also like Virtualmin, but I have yet to purchase a paid subscription. I will when I deploy my next intra-company web application since I can then claim that I outsourced tech support. Then, I can blame Joe to my coworkers when there are problems with the server. >:) The free blame is worth the extra few dollars a month.

I understand the burnout from the constant cheerleading in the push press. So, unsubscribe from the news. If something is important, you'll learn about it in a few weeks by word of mouth or when you search for it to learn something specifically.

However, while the "same old share, sync, discover, publish stuff" seems trite to us in technology, it is still a miracle of technology from a historical perspective. I mean: wow, you can send any information anywhere anytime immediately for nearly free. I don't think the applications for that deep magic could be fully exploited yet.