I don't know if I totally agree with him on this... "Dealers who have built their business model around a website and the Internet are flourishing today."
The big guys are but the mom-n-pop shops that I have relationships with, which are or have converted their business model to the internet are still struggling. In part this is due to a mindset/technology set problem as many of them don't truly understand the internet and internet marketing. I know several which have failed in recent years despite a switch to the internet. I think the strong will always survive, those that can adapt and are large enough to begin with. The small guy with few resources and understanding are still going to struggle and many fail.
I agree that he is missing a few key points and may be over stating others... I know he's trying to paint an up-beat picture of the hobby and I hope he's right. I have two kids who collect now, still working on the others but I don't see the internet having as much to do with that as I do. Kids need someone to mentor them and get them interested.. that's not going to happen magically because
eBay has a lot of stamp ads on it.
So, the moral of my rant... those that are young enough, go find a girl, marry her and make lots of new stamp collectors. Those that are too old to start all that up (again), start with your grand kids and or nephews/nieces. That's how the hobby perpetuates. My father saw a moderate interest I had and guided it; I've been collecting since 1972. His uncle did the same for him. Now it's our turn.
Over the past 20 years, I've been successful with two of my kids and one of a former co-worker's kids. Maybe that's not a lot but 3's better than none. I've tripled my "philatelic footprint". I'm not done yet. Now that half of our kids are married and off on their own, I'm looking forward to having lots of grandchildren (aka prospective collectors) in the coming years.
Don't push. With my daughter I interested her via my work on the family tree. My son was interested partly due to my collection but also because of the civil war and our visits to battlegrounds in the area. My co-worker's son was interested in foreign stamps because of the traveling his father did while in the service.
In these cases I took excess stamps and even a few out of my collection to get them started as a gift. The ones from me seemed to mean a little extra to them, particularly since a few of them were also from my fathers collection. I remember the same feeling when my father gave me his.
The upcoming eclipse traversing the US coast to coast and thermo-reactive USPS stamps being released for it are an opportunity.
By all means exploit the internet as children today are going to naturally gravitate to it, so show them some of the resources it has to offer collectors of all experience levels and interests.
It's up to us.
Not a sermon, just an opinion.
Jeff