Describe the visions and forces during the early days of e-commerce in terms of what the various interest groups hoped for: the computer science and information technology people; the economists; and the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and marketers. Explain whether what each group envisioned came to fruition and why or why not.

Initially, computer scientists and information technologists were to achieve a universal communications and computing environment where everyone could access inexpensive networks. The idea was basically to create a vast worldwide information collection from libraries, government, learning institutions as well as scientific institutions all over the world. They wanted a situation whereby e-commerce operates in a self-governed and self-regulated environment (Laudon, Traver, & Laudon, 1994). Nevertheless, various interest groups had varied visions which either came to pass while others did not as discussed below.

As aforementioned, computer scientists and information technologists wanted a situation whereby every person would have increased accessibility to the internet connection that would be readily available to all. From this point of view, one can easily conclude that this vision has materialized (Laudon, Traver, & Laudon, 1994). The number of people with internet access has significantly increased over the years. It is prudent to point out that around 112 million people are online every day, and customers have been accustomed to internet use especially as they search information before making purchases.

Economists, on the other hand, envisioned a near-perfect competitive market where price, cost, and quality of information are equally distributed. According to them, e-commerce would lead to a frictionless commerce where essential information in the market would be freely available to all. Economists hoped that the e-commerce would enable customers to access all kinds of products with best prices and services due to disintermediation that comes along with readily available information. Economists hoped that e-commerce would play a significant role in reducing monopolistic powers that most businesses enjoyed before information on price and costs was made available.  In addition, the economists also hoped that the access to information would reduce middlemen thus lower costs of the products and hence people would get the real value of their money. E-commerce would enable millions of customers to have adequate information on their suppliers, costs, and product information (Laudon, Traver, & Laudon, 1994). To some extent, this vision may not have been accomplished. For instance, it is evident that brands that created monopoly still exist. Disintermediation did not occur, and new kinds of middlemen such as Google and Amazon still exist.

Also, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists also had varied visions as far as e-commerce development was concerned. For instance, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs hoped to achieve significant profits after first several years of maintaining low prices and suffering losses to gain popularity in customers. Besides, as first movers, they could prevent competition once the customers were accustomed to their online service. Nevertheless, much of these visions have not come to fruition as many people had hoped. In fact, customers paid less attention to prices or had doubts and quit buying online (Laudon, Traver, & Laudon, 1994).  It is prudent to point out that the cost of doing business online has also not reduced as compared to those doing business offline. Many first movers, such as Eve.com, ran out of business while others, like Priceline.com and Onvia.com, regained profits after their recovery.  Although entrepreneurs and venture capitalists encountered numerous challenges, marketers remained the greatest beneficiaries of the technology as they benefited from search engine and web transaction logs that supported their job to significant levels. In essence, e-commerce has provided various lessons to the various interest groups from which they can build success.

References

Laudon, K., Traver, C., & Laudon, J. (1994). Information technology and society. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co.

Do you need an Original High Quality Academic Custom Essay?