[12054] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: The internet will kill us
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Willis Marti)
Tue May 3 14:54:13 1994
From: Willis Marti <willis@cs.tamu.edu>
Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 10:54:07 -0500
To: com-priv@psi.com, tom_limoncelli@warren.mentorg.com
>The internet will end our ecomomy as we know it as soon as digital cash
>is accepted and purchases can be made via the internet. It will bring
>all competition down to price. With sufficient purchasing automation,
>it won't make sense to have a contract with a single supplier that
>averages the cheapest. Instead you can order each individual item from
>whomever is cheapest at that moment. Don't worry about all the
>paperwork from having 15 suppliers rather than 1, DigiCash handles all
>of that for you.
It 'handles' very little of the extra effort it takes to work with multiple
accounts/vendors etc. You ignore all the other economies of scale and
other aspects of business relationships.
>
>Think about it:
>
>Run Mosaic 6.12. Go to the Global-Super-WAIS query screen and search
>through the index for "Office Supplies, Pens". Click on it.
>
>Now new fields appear and you enter information about exactly what you
>want, what color, what quality, felt or ball.
>
>Click "search best price".
>
>In 2 seconds you are told the best price, displayed a picture of it,
>and you click on "Purchase now".
I buy lots of "stuff" for my dept and on many items I can do the manual
equivalent now for what you've described. I don't use sole suppliers
unless it makes sense for other reasons. How long would it take before
you get postings on WWW describing poor quality or bad service? Even with
Digital Cash, my auditors will still be looking for a trail (to make sure
my in-laws aren't making all the money.
>When you can only compete on price (because all other factors are the
>same) you are now in the "Commodity Market". The problem with selling
>a commodity product is that you reduce your profit to just barely what
>it takes to get by.
Some things are currently commodities, some aren't & never will be. You'll
get increased competition, but also increased information about other things.
And you'll still have the lazy mgr who doesn't make the effort.
>Just a totally pesimistic thought for the morning,
Just a totally unrealistic thought...
