.com has come to mean a certain kind of business model, rabidly over used in the late 90s as companies scrambled to get internet presence, often to the exclusion of any other kind, which caused the inflating of the dot com bubble and it's inevitable bursting. The pattern often followed these lines:

  • Set up website and offer some kind of service.
  • Instantly make vast amounts of money as over-excited users try out every web based service under the cyber sun.
  • "Float" on the Nasdaq (a market set up exclusively for tech. companies).
  • Start to perform badly because either the infrastructure of the company isn't really geared towards such massive use or users single out one favourite service provider (eg. Amazon) that isn't you.
  • Go bankrupt or be bought out by a much larger company, which often then goes bankrupt itself..

Now a by-word for "Bad Idea"