Some further opinion on what the Internet will bring in change.
I live in a small town. They have one big grocer and most all of the other shops are small business. This leads to very high priced Mom and Pop distribution. It's a tax of a sort to pay the extra cost of buying from these people, but maybe the community is better off? I don't know.
Certainly, we have a lot of support from local business for all those things like surf lifesaving, pre-schools, dune care, etc. I do know that the local grocer is really a black hole of lost money. They employ mostly kids under 18 for cheaper labor, they use their lack of competition to charge very high prices and they give nothing back to the community.
So, eventually, there will be a change. Either a new shopping center will come in with a discount store like K-Mart, or the Internet will come in and offer prices that even Australia's discounters don't offer. For sure, many goods and services are going to be devalued. Many businesses will fail.
Also interesting is they are thrashing out to everyone's discontent, a General Sales Tax. This will raise prices to the consumer on everything, except Internet goods purchased from an overseas distributor. Now, you'll save 10+% buying on the net and that will pay the shipping.
But in the end, is all this good for society? Do the displaced people get better jobs? I think that is doubtful. I certainly think it is possible, but I think we need a friendly arbitrator to ease this change. I sure wish we had a good government to help.
We had a little chat yesterday about my Australian friend's first disillusionment over America when he read Grapes of Wrath. What happens to the people who are moved off their dead land (Internet victims)? Will there be people standing at the border of the Promised Land with bats trying to send them back like the Oakies found when they crossed the dessert into California.
Will they find work camps that offer poor wages and work conditions like those many may face working in UPS/FDX style warehouses? How many will have the skills to develop and support software?
Regards,
Mark
PS Here's an interesting IPO to watch.
zdnet.com |
