Introduction

We find ourselves today at one of those great divides of economic history, where we can either go forward into the unknown, or go back, with a sigh of relief, to familiar territory. The new economy – dot-coms, newstyle telecom entrants, new media companies, e-commerce sites etc. – has become an old-style bust. The adults are back in charge. Legacy is in. Balance sheets are in. Blue chips are in. We need not listen anymore to the purveyors of hype, about how bits play by different business rules than atoms, how the silicon economy is different from the carbon one, and how a P/E ratio need not have any E that stands for earnings, as long as that e-stands instead for electronic.

Yet, it would be tragic if we let the pendulum swing too far, or use this breathing space for smug self-satisfaction rather than regrouping, retooling and re-planning. The black ships challenging the old economy may have retreated over the horizon, but theywill be back. No temporary slow down should obscure the fact that we have just gone through something very fundamental.

With Internet connectivity progressing at a dizzying rate, the focus of attention has shifted to those left behind. The short-hand word for this concern is the ‘digital divide’. Underlying virtually every discussion about this digital divide in Internet connectivity is the implicit assumption that such a divide is a bad thing, requiring us to ‘do something’. But may be we should first pause for a moment and understand the implications of ending this divide.