At an occupational level, clearly this line of thinking would indicate that there will be fewer sales clerks in the future, as automated order-taking expands on the Web. More interestingly, corporate MIS may be a threatened occupation. The thinking here is that corporate MIS exists to maintain proprietary systems that meet the needs of internal customers, while the focus in the future will be on reaching external customers using standard Internet protocols. Therefore, corporations with big MIS departments may find themselves beaten out by firms with a lower MIS overhead. Corporate executive also may be a threatened occupation.
Executives are skilled at managing the internal flow of information.
Like the corporate MIS department, this function may be less important in the future. I want to hasten to point out that conventional economics would say that an innovation that cuts costs and raises productivity will tend to raise economic well-being. It will create new industries, and it will create new opportunities. The gains will more than offset the losses. New industries include more than just Internet service providers.