Sam Lessin, in public, is a privacy freak; privacy is the sales pitch for his staggeringly unpopular blogging and file-sharing startup, Drop.io. But he invited a bunch of known oversharers — Facebookers Dave Morin and Meagan Marks, Google Maps marketer Brittany Bohnet, and the like — to his dad's vacation home, permitted the filming of the video, and starred in it himself. I doubt he cared very much that it became an Internet sensation.

No, I suspect that this takedown had little to do with Web 2.0, and everything to do with Wall Street. Even before the mortgage bubble popped, launching the credit crisis, being showy with wealth just wasn't done in the circles Bob Lessin circulates in. Showing off your dad's sweet pad only seems like a good idea if you're a Harvard legacy in your early 20s.

So is this the end of Web 2.0? Depends on what you mean by "Web 2.0." No one can quite agree. User-generated content? It's cheaper than the professionally generated kind; in recessionary times, it seems like it's here to stay. Likewise the fad for creating programmable interfaces for websites; getting coders to volunteer their time to make your product better sure sounds better than hiring them.

No, the real test is whether this millennial generation will continue posting videos when they don't have splashy trips to celebrate. Will they continue updating friends with every change in their status, when the news isn't that they've gotten hired, launched a company, bought something expensive?

When their buddies can't find work, when their startups run out of money, when they start leaving town en masse, what will they do? Promise to stay Facebook friends?

Lucky Lessin. He's also the son of Bob Lessin, a former vice chairman of Smith Barney and Jefferies & Co. turned angel investor. Both are Harvard graduates, and the Lessins have given generously to Harvard.

There's absolutely no reason to believe Vascellaro influenced Vara to write about Lessin. Indeed, there's no reason for higher-ups at the Journal to look askance at the relationship, and shame on them if they do. But it's hard to imagine Lessin came to Vara's attention otherwise. Vascellaro, too, is a Harvard graduate. And gaining connections in influential places is what going to a school like Harvard is all about. Vara's article didn't mention that.