I do think that Brian overstates Rails' importance. Rails and Ruby aren't exactly earth shattering; the web would be the same as it was yesterday if these technologies disappeared today. For example, RubyMotion; were apps not built before that? The only thing that did was let Ruby devs write for iOS. Have apps increased in quality since RubyMotion? No. It just made it easier for Ruby devs to not learn Objective C. But it hasn't innovated much in terms of the user. Most of what they've done has been in PHP frameworks; how innovative is that really? I actually like Rails, but it isn't like they've invented HTTP. It's just another framework. I can do some cool stuff, but nothing that could not be done before. It all feels like a self congratulatory circle jerk with actual user-level improvements that would not be particularly noticeable by the average user; the Basecamp UX I am presented on the web is still the same cluttered mess it has always been. So what magic is this innovation actually creating? Just because we like a particular framework doesn't elevate it to the level of earth shattering. It certainly hasn't had the effect on the web that PHP has.