Every revolution in history has been driven by tech, and the revolutionaries where NOT taught about startups in engineering colleges. So ..you get the point. For revolutionaries, its not required.
[and why did you plugin that "wtf" at the end of your rant ? Trying to get that Diggitude? ]
..the author is on crack.The whole article is nothing better than a soap opera:
"Google, the "little search giant" feels like bidding. Doesnt have enough cash to win the bid. Rolls out evil plan in sheep's disguise demanding 'openness' ,so that the winning bidder will have to Open up everything.Auction day.As expected Google doesn't win the bid.The winner and gangs in retaliation blocks Google.com from the service. Google dies ."
Ofcourse some sort of captcha is necessary. If you are bothered about the looks, then the real question is what kind of captcha should you implement. You can go for the audio only captcha , or perhaps even a flash based visual one.
Repetitive captcha tests can be avoided if your application limits the frequenzy of submissions made . But this in turn is a larger annoyance for commenting systems.