No more umbrella means no more room for rivals to get a toehold. That could prove all the more true thanks to a rapidly emerging new class of Net middlemen in a wide range of consumer and industrial markets. Online, with few limitations of time and geography, these new marketmakers can quickly generate a virtuous loop of buyers and sellers, whose very presence attracts yet more buyers and sellers. For that reason, they're expected to dominate many industries, from chemical supplies to rolled steel. And maybe not for long.
Consolidation already is underway.
Someone else with a radical new idea can still come in and suddenly redefine a market. Besides, the Net gives buyers unprecedented power, because they can get much more information about products and, with little trouble, join online to become buying forces. That's why Hagel thinks these new middlemen could well turn the tables and become customer advocates, putting pressure on suppliers for lower prices. Years ago, policymakers and industry leaders both badly punted an opportunity to keep Microsoft from becoming a near-monopoly. This time, I hope they think hard about what to do about E-commerce before it's too late.