In a message dated 2/9/99 4:37:36 AM Central Daylight Time, sentience@pobox.com writes:
<< Amazon.com has been selling books at a loss for quite some time,
supported by their stock prices (i.e. market capital), in order to build
market share.
Then there's Jerry Kaplan's plan to sell computers at wholesale prices and make money off of ads (http://www.onsale.com). I told my friends that this might (but only "might") signify the Impending Collapse And/Or Transformation of the U.S. Economy, caused by the elimination of the entire retail and mark-up-supported sector. This wouldn't be quite as thorough a transformation as my projection that collaborative filtering will eliminate the entire marketing sector, or that complex barter will eliminate the entire financial sector, but it would be a good start. >>
Its kind of funny how the main ad (at the top) at onsale.com is for Amazon.com.
danny