I almost asked a question like this last week with no interest in a startup. I find because of the level of expertise on HN that a topic of this sort helps round out my overall knowledge of what is going on in some of these industries etc. I am not even a programmer but I find very useful actionable information in such threads. Just my 2 cents.
This was intended as (unsolicited, granted) advice to the person asking the questions to examine their goals. If they know they are fighting an up hill battle going in, hopefully they will be better prepared for the fight they are in for. Doing a startup is difficult even when you are a domain expert.
If the interest was purely academic... carry on :)
