Web oils the wheels of progress

[Commentary] By any measure, the changes wrought by the Internet have been fast. In the less than 20 years since the Internet became commercially available, what began as an idea for scientists to share information by connecting their computers has grown to touch almost every aspect of our lives, from business, finance and education to shopping, relationships and entertainment. James McQuivey, digital disruption expert at Forrester Research, says: “The number one effect [of the internet] from a purely macroeconomic perspective is that we are witnessing the dramatic reduction of the friction that was presumed to be unavoidable in the modern economy.