Much was made about electronic books and newspapers but efforts to overthrow traditional paper and ink have not yet worked. Few media organisations are yet to make a dollar from their websites and most have burnt up millions trying to make online pay. Politicians and others talk about the potential of online education, but there are problems with infrastructure, cost and the static, impersonal nature of systems developed so far. MIT in the United States offers free all course work on the Internet, a sign perhaps it is easier to give education away than make consumers pay. Contrary to popular belief, having access to mountains of data does not mean consumers have access to knowledge.
Human intervention is required to make a true transfer of knowledge.
Entertainment, which can be digitised easily, also has its sticking points. Napster, for instance, can move music files very efficiently but struck trouble, not because the Internet was faulty but because music companies could not make money from it. That may change with the introduction of cheap bandwidth and some intelligent marketing. So, too, with movies. Retailing has been tried and found wanting.