Within walking distance of Stanford, where the economist who coined the term "conspicuous consumption" once taught, a dark reality is playing out. Having already gone from boom to bust, many dot-commers are coming to something worse. Unable to make payments, they are selling luxury cars, canceling home renovations and returning jewelry by the box.

This region has grown accustomed to high-technology highs and lows over four decades, but the current dot-com collapse has lasted longer and cut deeper. And the recently affluent technology workers who had come to believe in the "long boom," the idea that prosperity would be permanent, are quietly giving up their flashy signs of success to make ends meet.