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Strategies & Market Trends : The Millennium Crash -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Yorikke who wrote (5159)	6/6/2000 11:01:00 AM
From: onurbius	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5676

<Forgive me, but isn't that what its all about? What you seem to take for granted is that coming up with these methodologies is easy, or without profit capturing potential. Tell that to billy gates.> Actually unless you are producing something truly groundbreaking, like genetic engineering to cure cancer and diabetes, all the conceptual work has essentially been finished. Trillions of dollars are being spent on the implementation of refinements and bells and whistles which do nothing to improve actual productivity or job growth unless you happen to be engaged in the business of technology for its own sake for the time being.

To: Yorikke who wrote (5159)	6/6/2000 11:27:00 AM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5676

Yorrike, my point in this case was specifically that the b2b internet sector was extremely overhyped w.r.t. profit potential. it's simply not true that these companies are needed as middlemen that will get a cut out of every transaction. this type of profit is precisely what the internet tends to compete away. remember ONSL in the b2c space? in the end they completely dispensed with earning a profit from their sales, instead relying completely on advertising income (imo another dead end, btw.). to come back to b2b, a software company that sells enabling software for b2b web sites is of course subject to different valuation criteria than a company that gets a cut from every transaction made on such a site. the latter is imo a pipe dream. generally speaking the long term ramifications of the internet for the economy have imo not yet been entirely grasped by the market...all people now see are the cost savings and additional efficiencies it brings about. the fact that it destroys profit margins is rarely discussed...the same goes for the fact that it brings about massive changes in the distribution infrastructure, which will definitely affect the existing system to a great extent...just as the car destroyed a large part of the agricultural economy at the time of its introduction (everything to do with horses went down the drain), a period of creative destruction has been unleashed with the introduction of the internet. it's of course great for the consumer, but the transition period from the old system to the new will bring about upheavals that are imo underestimated right now...