Introduction

The World Wide Web has many potential uses. This paper focuses on the use of the World Wide Web as a marketing tool in commerce. In this regard, the Web lowers costs, and it lowers them in some unusual ways. Accordingly, it is possible that the Web will lead to some significant economic changes. In section II of this paper, the effect of the Web on the "marketing cost function" is described. In section III, the implications for various industries and occupations are sketched. In the concluding section, the increased role of information and diminished role for physical capital are described as challenging for the standard economic paradigm.

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