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> There were similar debates taking place online around the dawn of e-commerce. I don't remember any debates in the 1990's about this. Some people built stuff,

by mojuba 5y ago

> There were similar debates taking place online around the dawn of e-commerce. I don't remember any debates in the 1990's about this. Some people built stuff, others just closed their physical shops and moved on to something else, or added online versions with delivery and survived. There was no debate per se, or if there was then it was by doing, not frigging talking. Also, it didn't take Amazon 10 years to take over shopping. In 1999 Bezos himself famously said he's the most surprized person on Earth by how sucessful Amazon had become. It was obvious to most people e-commerce was there to change shopping forever, except for those who ran high street shops.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
I was debating the e-commerce thing with people at UWash CS&E and Microsoft, including Mhyrvold, in 1993-1994. There were a few op eds and articles in magazines like the Atlantic, Harpers and New Republic that also touched on the matter. It wasn't a matter of dinner party discussion, but then neither is web3. It was somethng that those of us hanging around the edges of the coming e-commerce world were talking about on usenet. I don't know where you got that story about Bezos saying that, but it's BS. Jeff was never surprised by the success of the company that he started. It also wasn't obvious at the start of amzn that it would work. Even Jeff had no idea the extent to which people would feel comfortable with the web as a platform, which is one reason why amzn had an early contigency implementation of an email-based store (yes, really).
- mojuba 5y ago
  Okay, here's Jeff Bezos literally saying that [1]. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/02/03/jeff-bezos-1999-amazon-interview-vault-orig.cnn/video/playlists/business-amazon/ https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/02/03/jeff-bezo...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Sure. It's still BS. Jeff never had any doubt after the end of 1995.

by mojuba 5y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

I was debating the e-commerce thing with people at UWash CS&E and Microsoft, including Mhyrvold, in 1993-1994. There were a few op eds and articles in magazines like the Atlantic, Harpers and New Republic that also touched on the matter. It wasn't a matter of dinner party discussion, but then neither is web3. It was somethng that those of us hanging around the edges of the coming e-commerce world were talking about on usenet. I don't know where you got that story about Bezos saying that, but it's BS. Jeff was never surprised by the success of the company that he started. It also wasn't obvious at the start of amzn that it would work. Even Jeff had no idea the extent to which people would feel comfortable with the web as a platform, which is one reason why amzn had an early contigency implementation of an email-based store (yes, really).

mojuba 5y ago
Okay, here's Jeff Bezos literally saying that [1]. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/02/03/jeff-bezos-1999-amazon-interview-vault-orig.cnn/video/playlists/business-amazon/ https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/02/03/jeff-bezo...
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  Sure. It's still BS. Jeff never had any doubt after the end of 1995.