At the end of it, I was flush with new opportunities but reeling from jetlag. I imagined myself going back in time and trying to explain this odd concept to a citizen of the 19th century, or for that matter the early 20th century. They would have no framework for understanding what it meant to move at a rate of speed that could get you to your destination before you had even left. In the same way that modern airplanes changed the very notion of travel, the e-conomy changes the very nature of business by not only collapsing time but also permitting us to realize complexities and opportunities previously unimaginable. The easiest way to understand this change is to describe within a simple framework the way the e-conomy evolved from its predecessor.
Any economy consists of the basic interactions between buyers and sellers.
As an economy matures, its products and markets get more complex. If efficiency increases, the economy grows. The e-conomy is one of reintermediation, where new technologies make it possible to radically increase complexity and efficiency with the introduction of new marketplaces. In these markets, value chains constantly reorganize as the demands of the consumer and business rapidly change. The result is a market landscape with new business models popping up at a dizzying rate.