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To: Spytrdr who wrote (8488)	7/2/1998 2:52:00 AM
From: Ed Zhao	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

>>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

To: Spytrdr who wrote (8488)	7/2/1998 3:15:00 AM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

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 what will happen to all those stores and shopping malls?? You don't seem to be aware that Wal-mart is already online, for those who choose to buy online. This concept of ordering from your home and getting something shipped to you is NOT exactly a new idea. It's called mail order. Auto dealers are already online, and yes you can order a car from them online if you want. Of course, you still have to go in and sign papers. Clothes? Traditional and experienced mail-order clothing brands have already been selling on the web for quite some time. CD's? CDNow etc. have been doing that for years. CDNow pioneered selling CDs on the web. Consumer electronics on the internet? Computer Discount Warehouse (cdw.com), Computability.com, MicroWarehouse, PC-Connection, etc etc. Highly competitive. That's mostly computer related stuff, but how likely is it you're going to order a home stereo system off the internet? You want to hear how it sounds first. "All those stores and shopping malls and non-web based middlemen" are still going to be surviving just fine, just like they have been. The only difference will be that they'll all have web sites as an alternative medium with which people can shop and buy with.