[pfisherman]

I think you may have a bit of hindsight bias. The internet was not immediately recognized as useful. One of my first jobs was at an e-commerce startup that folded in the dot com bust because (1) investors did not believe that our target customers would favor online shopping over ordering from physical catalogs, or (2) foresee how online sales might impact business operations or the viability / scalability of business models - such as drop shipping.