Bend, thanks for your response. Clearly you missed the meaning of my satirical tone in my post. For that, I apologize. I was simply trying to evoke a response from the reader so that my post was not overlooked among the hundreds of posts. In that regard, I achieved my goal.
I value greatly degrees from top universities, especially MIT and Stanford. I do understand the difficulty of HTML and CSS, and I am envious of the technical geniuses that are able to build applications using them. My point was that it takes more than excellent programming knowledge to build a useful application for users, AND turn it into a successful business venture. Many programmers are great at building apps, but may not know how to build a successful business from it (Or, they may know exactly how).
I am not stating my idea is great, as I have not pitched it to programmers or users yet. I appreciate your advice on building the app myself though. Another reader suggested a similar idea, and I believe it is a good course of action.
I hope I have conveyed that the tone in my post was merely to illicit a response from readers, and was not intended to trivialize degrees or technical abilities.