E commerce
E-commerceAs use of the Internet has grown by leaps and bounds, it is clear that electronic commerce will proliferate rapidly in the years ahead. The number of Internet domains in the United States is more than 1.3 million. Most major companies now have Web sites, if only to market themselves, and many others are exploiting intranets to improve internal operations. As many as 163 million personal computers worldwide will have access to the Internet by the year 2000. As television and telephony migrate onto the Internet, wireless communication explodes, and countless other new applications attract users, one of the biggest challenges is understanding the economic and social logic driving change.
While much of the frenetic growth is fueled by the Internet's obvious capabilities-e-mail, newsgroups, Web sites, and a modest amount of actual market transactions-it remains uncertain what business models and Internet functions will prove most popular and profitable over the long term. Much will depend upon how the new electronic technologies will change existing business practices, market structures, and the social habits of the workplace, marketplace, and home.
Can we discern how electronic commerce adds value to conventional marketplace transactions, making the Internet a preferred venue for business? Will markets of the future be substantially more efficient, to the extent of being "friction-free?" Or will a new regime of dominant players arise to eliminate competitors and create "winner-take-all" marketplaces?
As electronic commerce spreads internationally, an equally profound issue is the fate of national sovereignty. Economic globalization, particularly of capital markets, is altering the traditional prerogatives of nation-states to control what can take place within their territorial borders. National governments are facing growing challenges not only in managing the terms of international trade and finance, but in collecting taxes, controlling the domestic money supply, and addressing domestic social and cultural needs. The Internet and other electronic technologies are playing an important role in this transformation.
For six years, the Aspen Institute's Communications and Society Program has sponsored the Roundtable on Information Technology to explore such issues. In August 1997, the Program once again convened a small group of top executives of information technology companies, computer scientists, academics, and government policymakers to discuss "The Globalization of Electronic Commerce: How New Information Technologies are Altering the Social, Economic, and Cultural Landscape." The 27 conference participants met August 21-23, 1997 in Aspen, Colorado, to consider an agenda prepared and moderated by Charles Firestone, director of The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program.
This report distills the major themes of that discussion. Although the participants are the primary source of this report, unless cited to a particular person, none of the comments herein should be taken as embodying the views or carrying the endorsement of any specific attendee at the conference. Most of the report is the author's own interpretive synthesis, supplemented by various materials credited in the endnotes.
Part One: Electronic Commerce and the Restructuring of Markets
The Global Advance of Electronic Commerce
Communications and Society Program
August 1997...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.