These new technologies create new options for people. It's like the video cameras in the courtrooms now that can be used at the judge's discretion, or not. As long as we continue that way, we'll be on the right track. Reed takes a long view of things. Dislocations come in almost every era.
History keeps rolling along.
She observes how the 1999 holiday season brought big changes in retailing. People ordered so much online that UPS strained at the seams to deliver it all. Reed makes a comparison to the way mail-order catalogs captivated America at the end of the nineteenth century. For many rural people, mail-order catalogs were a welcomed way to obtain nice things not available locally. The Internet today opens up possibilities for many people and gets things done that otherwise would never happen.