A business model for the post-dot-com age:
online begging, where people set up web sites with sob stories about dodgy spouses or crippling credit-card bills and wait for soft-hearted suckers to PayPal them money.
The difference between a pockmarked junky begging on the street for heroin money and a woman in Brooklyn asking for money to pay off her Prada bills comes down to presentation; well, that and the social acceptability of the addiction.