Hello Direct is merely extending its catalog to the online realm, and, to the extent people order online, probably lowering the costs of maintaining a phone bank. The case for auction houses is a little murkier. They ll need to get enough people participating in every auction in order to bid up prices to a level where they make money. Over time these issues will be sorted out, as the houses figure out how long an auction should last, what times of day to run auctions, and what sorts of minimum bids are best. In the short run, look for a lot a auction houses to go belly up, and expect to hear anecdotes from friends about the amazing buys they got by doing their bidding at just the right time.
Travel agencies don t sell physical goods at all, but rather broker travel services.
So this leaves us with folks who provide information for free on the Net. In many cases, these are traditional publishers that have re-deployed their content to the Net. Magazine publishers such as Ziff-Davis probably realize that even if every word of every article of every issue of a magazine is placed online, at least in the short run, there will be no impact on subscriptions. People still want to read articles on paper. So there s no loss in revenue from print sales, and the possibility of revenue from banner ads.