Re: only 3% of US market cap is pure-play Internets

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From: ThosStew@aol.com
Date: Mon May 01 2000 - 05:47:55 PDT


In a message dated 4/29/2000 5:56:41 AM, fielding@kiwi.ICS.UCI.EDU writes:

> But the real money is in the production and transport of goods and services,
>not in the exchange of information about those goods and services.

Not really.

The Official Airline Guide is profitable
Flying carbon-based molecules is not--net profit in the history of passenger
aviation is approximately zero.

Other examples abound.

Of course it depends on what you mean by "exchange of information" and
"transport of goods and services". There's money in making bank transfers, as
the part(ies) facilitating the trasnsfer charge their mils for their work. Is
a bank transfer an exchange of information ("Tom would like you to take 50
cents from his account and put it into Roy's")--or is it the production of a
service and/or the transport of goods (i.e. money, albeit intangible byte
money, not trangible biteable money)?

>The exceptions are the firms that create new markets on the Internet itself

A large and growing exception.

The central point, on which we agree I suspect, is that it will become harder
and harder to distinguished betwen e-commerce and commerce. It will create
new services, new buisnesses; and it will change the dynamics of competing in
old ones--both

Tom


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