Creation of value on the Internet

<jats:p>Where will the value come from on the Internet? How can money be made on a network where almost everything is free? This article puts forward some ideas. In the short term, e-commerce will be able to finance commercial web sites, but these sites provide only a small proportion of the information accessible on the web. Free sites, in so far as they provide a place where consumers and producers can exchange the information required to design new products and services, are a key component of the Internet. The Internet will also help firms to change their structure in order to accommodate a faster pace of innovation. Internet Protocol applications should help to update individual skills and bring them together into a coherent system of knowledge and behaviour. When finally the information economy obscures the distinction between work and leisure, the Internet will create value either by organizing the control of intellectual property rights on information or by facilitating convergence of information producers and consumers.</jats:p>