We used to send away for stuff. Then we could order stuff over the phone. Now we can buy it, or even get it for free, online. Sellers have always adopted communications technologies to make it easier for us to hear about and buy their wares. But never before has the price of entry been so affordable for a sales mechanism that can reach out and touch the world as well as provide the means for immediate delivery.
Electronic transactions involving information and images and sound are immediate.
Granted, we will never be able to download a beer or a bicycle or tangible goods, which will keep the bonfire burning in the package delivery industry, but it does spell the death of the letter, the bill and mail as we know it. On-demand electronic distribution is also shaking up the economic models of traditional entertainment content. MP3 technology is wreaking havoc in the music industry. Artists can get more of their work out there themselves and at the same time have more people able to access it and them directly. It remains to be seen how this issue will be resolved, but if the Internet can't kill the book, it probably won't change our willingness to pay for other entertainment media for similar reasons.