I can't agree more with this post, after attending the Google Developer day as a .Net developer, I felt very much out of place. Every demo was done using Python or PHP or Ruby...also being a HN lurker, there is rarely any interest in .Net stories amongst startup developers.
Another hurdle with adoption is the sense of having to pay for everything good. With languages born out of the open source movement, there are ample complete source code samples to download / use.
Try finding good open source .Net products like CMS's without having to pay, there are some, but nothing of the quality coming out of the likes of PHP / Ruby / MySQL.
Still I hack on, it might not be as l33t as the open source guys, but I get my prototypes built and running, and that same sense of accomplishment :)
The biggest problem preventing more widespread adoption of .NET on the web is hosting. Compared to Linux-based hosts, the market for Windows/IIS hosting is not quite as large, and also not quite as trusted.
.NET really is a great platform, it's just a bit hampered by the baggage (imagined or otherwise) that is the Microsoft juggernaut.
Another hurdle with adoption is the sense of having to pay for everything good. With languages born out of the open source movement, there are ample complete source code samples to download / use.
Try finding good open source .Net products like CMS's without having to pay, there are some, but nothing of the quality coming out of the likes of PHP / Ruby / MySQL.
Still I hack on, it might not be as l33t as the open source guys, but I get my prototypes built and running, and that same sense of accomplishment :)