Bloor predicts culture change driven by ecommerce

NEWS Industry guru, Robin Bloor, has predicted ecommerce will spell the end of the nation state. In an exclusive interview with Silicon.com, Bloor previewed his eRoad report, out early next month. It offers a vision of a world where electronic money replaces banks and where nations compete for citizens by offering lucrative tax incentives. Bloor predicts that ecommerce revenues will total nearly $1,000bn - or 3 per cent of the world economy - by 2000. He believes we will see major cultural changes start to happen when ecommerce is worth about 10 per cent of the global economy, which could be as early as 2005. Bloor believes societies will buckle under a technological revolution. "If you take away the wealth creators, you have two choices. You can do away with income tax or you can clamp down. But if you try to clamp down on the nation state, the technology is against you." For example, he says, there is no gambling law anymore, since we can all do it on the Internet. The permissive pornography laws of Sweden will become the de facto law of the world. For the present, Bloor insists that in some industries, it's too late to be catching on to the ecommerce revolution. "If you're a stock trader in the US without a Web strategy, it's too late. It's just a matter of who is going to buy your business." More information about eRoad is available at www.bloor.co.uk.