Just about any of the social networks that were "the next big thing" except for Facebook and Myspace. Friendster was the first social network I joined, was massively popular, and now seems pretty moribund.
They didn't die of not figuring out a business model, though. They died of ceasing to be popular. If anything these examples support my case for the primacy of getting lots of users.
a lot of aged web companies seem moribund. You could say the same thing about geocities. To tweak PGs question a bit, can you think of any sites that got massively popular and didn't have the opportunity to make a ton of money?
