E-Commerce is becoming THE commerce, so it should be no wonder why Corporate America is putting ever-increasing effort into its online presence. But all of this busy static masks the most interesting changes taking place on the Net, namely the monopolistic activities of the technology behemoths.
We will see more consolidation among the infrastructure companies, the ones that supply the plumbing, either through virtual valves or physical pipes. This has to happen. There is simply too much money to be made, too many empires to be built, to allow a bunch of nerdy freethinkers to share in the riches and decision making.
The gold rush is well over. Now is the time when the permanent mines are established and the wealth gets redirected to a handful of offices. The same folks sit on the same boards of the Fortune 500 and divvy up the chips while we pick up the pieces.
I've made the case for the Internet's potential transition into a tool for mind control (see Controlled Consensus). This article does not contradict that. People are getting a rapidly growing amount of their information from the Web. Filtered by who? And at what cost? One European country after another is taking up the fight for independence by rejecting Microsoft's operating system on their government computers.
Part of this is out of those countries' desires to spread the wealth more equitably to other software makers. They also want to lessen their dependence on what is seen as an overly aggressive and manipulative corporation. Money and mind control go hand-in-hand. They must. Otherwise, we all start asking where the cash ends up.