In the early 2000 internet boom, I saw predictions like the coming era of paperless offices, death of post as emails and e-greetings were growing etc. which spelt doom for some traditional offline services.
What's interesting to note is new technologies bring new and different uses for existing products. Customers find new ways or use the technology to do new things which will improve the way existing services providers sell their products.
Here's a nice article from NY times on how internet is changing the US Postal services, product usage and mix:
As people send e-mail and e-cards instead of handwritten letters and greetings, as they pay more bills online and file tax returns electronically, the Postal Service has started to seem like a drab and tired reminder of the old way of doing things.
Yet the Internet is actually injecting new life — and a sorely needed source of revenue — into the Postal Service. And it is happening with packages — millions of them shipped every day, in a journey that starts with a few mouse clicks and ends a day or two or five later at a customer’s door
In 2005, revenue from first-class mail like cards and letters, which still made up more than half the Postal Service’s total sales of $66.6 billion, dropped nearly 1 percent from 2004. But revenue from packages helped make up for much of that drop, rising 2.8 percent, to $8.6 billion, last year, as it handled nearly three billion packages.
Netflix ships 1.4 million movies every day, and it expects to spend some $300 million on postage this year.
According to a study conducted by Forrester Research for Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation, online sales of items that are shipped are expected to rise 20 percent this year from last year, to nearly $132 billion.
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