Ever since the Internet became a public platform, there have been pundits to tell us what it all means. If you were an early Internet adopter, you might remember people speculating that this would be a great educational and information-sharing tool, but it would never become a commercial medium. In fact some were adamant that this would remain non-commercial.
Then corporations woke up to the potential and everything was going to be on the Web. Many books and hundreds of magazine articles predicted the demise of brick-and-mortar (do we even use that phrase anymore?) retail. E-commerce had evolved to the point where you had a choice of online providers for exotic items such as kitty litter, delivered to your house, free! The ratio of weight to value to shipping cost didn’t seem to phase the venture capitalists or anyone else. Until the companies went bankrupt. So much for those pundits. read more
