It wasn't the technology so much as the customers/marketplace. Back in 1999/2000, the market to buy groceries over the Internet wasn't there. Paying for shipp

It wasn't the technology so much as the customers/marketplace. Back in 1999/2000, the market to buy groceries over the Internet wasn't there. Paying for shipping was still a sore point, and Amazon Prime wasn't around yet. People just didn't associate buying groceries with the Internet, so there was a considerable amount of friction they had to overcome, and not a lot of time considering the burden of all the infrastructure they had. Once the bust hit, it was over for them because they didn't make enough revenues to pay their obligations and no more VC money to give them some breathing room. These days, buying things like groceries is an afterthought, especially post-smartphone where you have a computer everywhere you go, so you can monitor the progress of deliveries, without having to sit by your desktop.