>>same thing with clothes, software, computer hardware, cars (soon),
bicycles, tennis-shoes, consumer electronics, etc etc etc, you name it. the internet will crush all non-web based middlemen.<<
The irony is that the Internet is the middleman. Why?
The car dealerships, the stores, the supermarkets, they're there for a purpose and they will always be there for a purpose. Can one imaging buying a car without being able to first go to a dealership to test drive it. Any a vast majority of people still prefer buying clothes, bicycles, tennis-shoes, consumer electronics, etc etc etc, except commodity like books, after tried them first. That is why these stores will always be there and will always make a profit for being there.
So far, What the Internet does is to introduce customers to vendors and in the mean time, increase competition. Does Ford or GM or Toyota sell cars directly in the Internet? No. What Auto-by-Tel can offer is to direct customers to certain dealers. So before, the flow was: Consumer-Dealer-Manufacture, becomes, Consumer-Internet-Dealer-Manufacuture. See the problem with that picture.
The majority role Internet play in the consumer market is, and in the foreseenable future, will be an advertising middleman.
XZ |
