I think that’s true. Things will get harder. I still find it hard to understand why web developers spend all their time developing sites for other people when they could be developing sites for themselves.

Having said that I don’t think the growth rate will be quite so fast that in 2 years a LOT of people will start going of our business. Publishing successful sites is not easy to do even now and it will only get harder. Those without the determination and, more importantly, the patience to succeed will probably just give up before they pose any threat.

I think the pure website publishing industry has already seen its peak growth rate over the last 4 years or so. I think things are actually slowing down now due to increased competition and dodgy search engine algorithms. In 2 years you’ll still be able to make a success of things – it’ll just be that much harder due to established sites.

One particular niche I am in right now has a bunch of spam. I suspect the guys behind this are making a very healthy profit. The problem for them is once their free search engine traffic dries up their business model is dead. Not saying that there is anything wrong with that.. just that the people who are taking that approach should either be pocketing their profits or building a site or two for the long term.