And what potential there is. Revenues for book sales on the web are approaching a billion per year. Companies involved in music and wine are doubling, tripling, and quadrupling sales every year. Egghead Software is closing all its physical retail outlets, and moving entirely to the web. So much for protecting this medium from the corruptions of capitalism.
Commercial relations are the essential source of economic and social vibrancy.
These relations mark the difference between living and growing civilizations, and decaying ones. The rise of the net economy should also give us pause to think about economic principles. The most basic one is that free markets create order from seeming chaos. There is no central authority on the Internet making or enforcing rules. There is no master plan detailing what kinds of businesses should and should not attempt to market their product through this medium.