Here's an interesting question from Sarah Lacey (via Chris Pirillo):

Of course, we all know it's community and content that's made this happen more than it is the code. But what happens when you get too much of a big thing? Does community scale? Or does it break down? Having proven they can grab as large of a megaphone as they want, some of the Internet famous are choosing to step back - burned out from the work, pressure and scrutiny. Making matters worse, many bloggers have been manipulated into being tools of the very powerbrokers they were trying to disrupt.

This is pretty much the process any developing media goes through. Take radio - back in the early days (the 1910's and 1920's), it was a "wild west" medium - lots of small broadcasters, doing lots and lots of things. As time went by, commercial interests came in and dominated, leaving a tiny niche of "pirate radio" stations and low power college radio stations in their wake - a remnant of the earlier days.

The net in general, and the blogosphere in particular, is moving in that direction. Unlike radio, it's unlikely to see the mass disappearance of the little guy; there's not a "limited spectrum" problem to make that happen. There is a "limited attention" issue though, and that will drive consolidation. On the political side, you already see that with the expansion of sites like Kos, Townhall, Huffington, and Pajamas Media - a lot of people who were independents have "joined up". Over time, the same thing will occur happen across other sectors of the blogosphere - it's simply an inevitable stage of media growth.

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