Consumers are more sophisticated, and given the profile of the average Netizen, they are in a position to demand and pay for increasingly higher standards of service and product. Hitherto, companies were in a position to dictate prices and standards to consumers, on the Internet however, that power has been annexed and is firmly in the hands of the consumer. Companies are now making the first steps towards re-evaluating strategies to foucus on the consumer as opposed to the product. Traditionally, companies tended to compete on the understanding that their product was bigger, faster, more robust. However, because the life cycle of any product is now so short, and because there are no geographical boundaries to contend with and because the Net makes choice boundless, companies are more vunerable.
Consumers are very much in control.
Not only are large corporations organising their business strategies firmly around the whims of consumers but consumers are also finding themselves in a position where they can hold large corporations to ransom and achieve results which are incomparable to traditional protest. In the last few months, Germany, Italy and Spain have used the Internet to protest against rising prices which have been imposed by previously state-owned Telcos. Servers have been brought to a standstill by consumers angry over increasing prices. To date, this kind of protest has been reserved exclusively for telco companies intent on charging exponential rates for phone calls. However, there is nothing to stop consumers, irked at growing prices and sliding standards, from levying the same treatment on any number of different businesses online.