Beyond the Information Revolution - The Atlantic

Via The Atlantic on Facebook, with the comment "Amazon.com is now 20 years old. From our archives, here's how "e-commerce" was expected to revolutionize society in 1999," the lead paragraph from a 1999 Peter Drucker perspective

"The truly revolutionary impact of the Information Revolution is just beginning to be felt. But it is not "information" that fuels this impact. It is not "artificial intelligence." It is not the effect of computers and data processing on decision-making, policymaking, or strategy. It is something that practically no one foresaw or, indeed, even talked about ten or fifteen years ago: e-commerce—that is, the explosive emergence of the Internet as a major, perhaps eventually the major, worldwide distribution channel for goods, for services, and, surprisingly, for managerial and professional jobs. This is profoundly changing economies, markets, and industry structures; products and services and their flow; consumer segmentation, consumer values, and consumer behavior; jobs and labor markets. But the impact may be even greater on societies and politics and, above all, on the way we see the world and ourselves in it."

Beyond the Information Revolution - The Atlantic