Because so many people use it for business communication, I think it'd have long-term effects on the economy that would be really difficult (but interesting) to

Because so many people use it for business communication, I think it'd have long-term effects on the economy that would be really difficult (but interesting) to measure. It's not a perfect example, because you can get your mails out of GMail, but - This kind of thing might be what it takes to pass legislation forcing data services to provide access (see http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1617 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1617 )