>Servers are only going to get cheaper. Programming is only going to get easier. If anything, things like search engines and social networks are going to become more competitive

Programming skill and number of programmers is not a limiting factor to Product and social networking development. In fact, there is a vast oversupply of talent. If you look at the talent to opportunity ratio: it's enormous.

Look at product hunt. Dozens of potentially brilliant projects built and released everyday and yet only a tiny tiny percentage will ever be successful. Most fail because, either they've built something that too few people find useful or the market they're trying to address is too crowded (already has too many people offering similar services).