Virtual Capitalism

Abstract

Even though it is difficult to project forward the course of major innovations, we can make several reasonably safe bets about the evolution of the internet as a locus of economic activity.1 New communication technologies (such as broadband) will eventually give the internet dramatically enhanced performance capabilities in terms of safety and convenience of access, speed of operations, information-processing capacity and multimedia applications. Furthermore, infrastructure enhancements will allow the net to spread in all kinds of directions, rendering the currently dominant and centralized World Wide Web layer of the internet less important as other net layers emerge. I can think here of intra- and extranets, instant messaging, the wireless ‘mobile web’, decentralized P2P networks with interactive file-sharing and downloading capabilities and communication networks allowing smart machines to talk to each other. Also quite predictable is that paper will be crowded out by electronic data signals which save money and time. The vulnerability of mail delivery in the wake of the anthrax scare in the USA in late 2001 has already prompted accelerated efforts to move from paper to digitalized information. This transformation will affect the way we receive and pay bills, read books or newspapers and enter into contracts.