The IT Era and the Internet Revolution

This point cannot be emphasized enough: the Internet is the single most disruptive1 force of our lifetimes because it does not evolve existing ways of doing things, but completely smashes the assumptions underlying them — assumptions we often didn’t even realize existed.

It’s easy to think that the Internet Age is well-established, but the truth is we’re only getting started. Remember, it took nearly two decades for the Model T to develop the car ecosystem to the point where new opportunities emerged to offer differentiated vehicles at much higher prices and much greater per-unit profit (Mercedes-Benz, for example,... See more

The Internet changes all of that: now articles and videos are simply digital bits, easily created and easily transmitted anywhere on the globe, effectively for free. Physical goods still need to be made, but they can be sold to anyone by anyone, and shelf space has been replaced by the commoditized cardboard box.

The Internet has made distribution (of digital goods) free, neutralizing the advantage that pre-Internet distributors leveraged to integrate with suppliers. Secondly, the Internet has made transaction costs zero, making it viable for a distributor to integrate forward with end users/consumers at scale.

This has fundamentally changed the plane of com

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The fundamental disruption of the Internet has been to turn this dynamic on its head. First, the Internet has made distribution (of digital goods) free, neutralizing the advantage that pre-Internet distributors leveraged to integrate with suppliers. Secondly, the Internet has made transaction costs zero, making it viable for a distributor to integr... See more

According to Gurri, modern information technology enables the public, composed of amateurs, to break the power hierarchies of the industrial age. As the floodgates of information open, the public, organized on social media networks, is clashing with hierarchical, Industrial-era governments and institutions.