More and more commerce is going to occur in electronic environments but what will happen is that as we do more electronically there will be more and more happening in the real world. But again we're reinventing the shopping experience today. Malls are in trouble. People want to come back to urban cores but the fact is that the more and more you move bits around on the Internet and online systems, the consequence is you're going to move more and more stuff around on the planet. Companies like Federal Express are setting up new logistics operations precisely to respond to the expected increase in the movement of stuff.
Businesses really do have to be on line.
If I were running a company in just about any business category today, I would be saying how do I build a presence on the Internet and, either use it directly to run my business and develop commercial opportunities or say I'm going to use this as a way of understanding what might be working over the horizon for me. It is business malpractice to ignore what's happening on the Internet today. The privacy implication of what's afoot is profound and unsettling but the simple fact is that it's a continuation of the same trade offs we've been making for decades. The advent of things like the Internet and enhanced phone systems will also create similar trade offs. If someone doesn't want their information to be in the TRW database today, there's a very easy solution.