Larry Downes: “The gradual — then sudden — disruption of retail” (Washington Post)

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The Washington Post

Twenty years ago, when the commercial Internet was just a handful of static Web pages and links, I started a list of predictions that have since proved very, very wrong: “No one will ever buy a car on the Internet.” “Our customers aren’t interested in trading stocks online — that’s what they pay us to do.” “Consumers aren’t comfortable giving a website their credit card number.” But the biggest Internet myth of all has finally been busted. Traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, which long claimed immunity to disruption from Web-based competitors, are at last giving up the fight.