Consider the following:

From the New York Times Article on "The Impact of the Internet on our Offices"

The investment banker John Roth was recently heard saying that all of the predictions made by start-up companies during the dot com bubble are actually starting to become true. Who would have believed that in 2006 Ebay would have a value of a few billion dollars. This is nothing compared to the $25 billion value of Google. Numbers aside, how about the different applications on the net. There have been an equal amount of surprises too. Communication costs are being reduced significantly. Amazon, Skype, Hotmail, MSN are all multibillion dollar companies that did not exist 10 years ago. These are just a few of the many companies that are providing services that save time and money. How does this impact our organizations?

Reduced expenses is probably the most important affect the net has had on our office, to the point that nowadays a small activity has the ability to present itself as a large company.

Better research and reduced study time are contributing to the office of the 21st century. Prior to the arrival of the net, only large companies could have access to certain types of information and as with one of the precursors to the net, Lexus Nexus, was an expensive service. This meant a significant advantage for the big guys.

Consider just-in-time solutions. The combination of communication, information flow, and significant intranet solutions, overhead cost are reduced significantly. This means that companies do not have to carry excessive stock.

Faster communication permits for better client service. It also means that there is more pressure on companies to respond to business needs.

So, before we worked slower, inefficiently, with poorer customer service. The winner is the consumer.

The New York Times