Word: traded
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Today's frontier is hidden from the physical world, burbling and buzzing along the interconnected wires, routers and computers of the Net. But the possibilities for trade are far more fabulous than could ever have been imagined 100--or even 10--years ago. That's where Bezos comes in. His van rounds a corner, passes an airfield, heads down a two-lane road and pulls into a long driveway that leads to the biggest warehouse you've ever seen. The place is known as the Coffeyville Distribution Center, and Bezos (pronounced Bay-zos), who's never been here before...
...belief in the Internet--that it would rock retailing, that it would change the way we live--stands as one of the more prescient assumptions ever made by a businessperson. "We're trying to build something lasting," Bezos says, looking at this 850,000-sq.-ft. monument to free trade. The warehouse is stocked with books, CDs, TVs, stereos, video games, software, toys. And yet only 10% of the area is being used. The rest is stretch space, here for the ongoing e-commerce revolution...
...began with Pez and a man named Pierre Omidyar, now 32. In the summer of 1995 Omidyar's fiance (now wife) Pam, who collected Pez dispensers, was bemoaning how hard it was to find other people to trade with in the San Francisco Bay Area. Omidyar was already an e-commerce pioneer (Microsoft eventually bought out eShop, a company he co-founded), but lately he had been wrestling with how the Internet could be used to create fairer markets. The Pez dilemma led Omidyar to the flash of an idea: an Internet auction site could function as the ultimate efficient...
Many antiques dealers, who would seem most threatened by eBay, have seen their livelihoods transformed. David James, for example, opened his shop in Alexandria, Va., eight years ago. He deals mostly in what the trade calls smalls: candlesticks, glassware and other such collectibles. He's still got the store, but today his business--and his life--revolve around a warehouse a few miles away, where he stores the treasures he has gleaned from scouting estate sales and flea markets. From a cramped, windowless cubicle, he monitors the hundreds of auctions he has posted--moving anywhere from...
...case, the lawsuits have caused a rift between some gunmakers and the National Rifle Association, which cares more about the principles involved than the economics. Gunmakers point out that they are the ones being sued, not the N.R.A. Says Robert Delfay, head of the manufacturers' trade group: "If the day comes when we have to do something the N.R.A. doesn't approve of, we'll tell them...