I don’t claim any special ability to predict what’s going to happen – every morning, the “Today Show” theme music catches me by surprise – but back during the first dot-com boom, I often would ask, “How is that online company going to make any money?”

Our cat never did come up with a satisfactory answer.

As it turned out, I was right to be skeptical. Most of those businesses had neglected to fill out the “profit potential” line on their business plan. They would spring up with an offer to deliver kitty litter to your home, for example, and then spring right back down again. The sector imploded. There was nothing left to do with the rest of the 21st century’s opening decade but invest in real estate.

The dot-com boom is on again, and every day another company writes another piece of software that offers a way to do a specific thing somewhat more quickly than you could do it with a pencil and a small notebook. I’m working on an app that will organize your “thoughts” into “sentences,” but problems several cropped up have.

Still, people seem to be having fun with their smartphones, so it’s fine with me.

Now and then, even I stumble onto something that makes life better. When my kids taught me how to use Pandora.com on my laptop, I realized there was no point in ever visiting the rapidly diminishing CD departments of rapidly vanishing bookstores ever again.

I’ve always agonized over the best way to broaden my music horizons; I still can’t decide whether to buy “Meet the Beatles” or just let that whole fad blow over. But now I could let Pandora do the work for me.

I signed up for free, picked out a few music genres for free and let it start to play for free. Every few minutes, I heard some great stuff from someone I never knew existed. Jeez, what else have I missed out on? What exactly goes on inside a gentlemen’s club, anyway?

Every few minutes, Pandora plays an advertisement. Most of these ads are for – well, I don’t remember. Real soothing voice. Real easy to tune out.

After a while, the music stops and a prompt appears on my laptop, asking if I’m still listening. I confirm, and the Blues Guitar Legends return to the stage.

This is a fabulous way to brighten up my workshop. The question is, how does it brighten up the bank accounts of the people behind Pandora.com?

Those people are wondering the same thing. CNNMoney reports that “the Oakland-based company posted a fourth-quarter loss of $1.4 billion. …The trouble has come as Pandora’s popularity, and in turn its expenses, outpaced its ability to rake in enough advertising.”

For another example, Twitter is big, growing and accepted – but the people in charge are still wondering how to turn a profit. Prepare to receive lots of tweets extolling product virtues.

That’s the trouble with great ideas nowadays. The public wants them all for free, which wreaks havoc on the traditional business model.

Previous generations didn’t try to get free house paint by giving Sherwin-Williams the right to sell advertising space on their walls. General Motors didn’t give away Corvairs, hoping to make it up with “apps,” like seat covers and paste wax. If you wanted something for free, you were welcome to wait for nightfall and look up at Orion.

Back when capitalism was brand-new, a big idea was when somebody at a board meeting said, “OK, this year let’s make the tail fins an inch higher. Shouldn’t cost us much.”

Now we jump on a truly ingenious concept because it’s ingenious, and only later try to figure out if we’re looking at a billion dollars or a trip to bankruptcy court.

If bottom-line worries are outdated, that’s another life-changer. Run a business that loses $1.4 billion per quarter? I’d be perfect for that.