Working harder, producing better content ... still, MANY folks still have Yahoo, AOL or MSN as their homepage :-(. And of course, Google wants to be the web's only affiliate [http://www.seobook.com/brand-vs-affiliate-vs-spam], but will give a pass to "brands" (read: brands + cash = not spam), while labeling small sites as internet spam. Its all looking pretty dire for the common (wo)man. Business as usual, i guess.

The internet, for better or worse, is a winner takes all game within each vertical.

The corollary of this is that if you can't compete in your current vertical you choose a more restricted vertical and try to be one of the fat cats within that.