Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Can Corporate Greed Crush Small Business on the Web?
As I related last week, there have been recent moves that could change the face of the Internet in future years. These moves could let major ISPs offer better visibility and connectivity to websites that pay them for this service and leave websites that don't pay with slow and unreliable service.

I expressed my disdain for the all the hand-wringing this news brought last week. But let's take a closer look at the reality of this situation. Can this kind of system actually destroy small business' access to the Web?

I became quite familiar with a small town in Western Iowa a couple of years ago while my son attended the college there. When he started school, a big WalMart had set up on the outskirts just long enough ago that the downtown businesses were feeling its effects.

Going-out-of-business signs went up in window after window of the small drug stores, hardware stores, and clothing stores that lines the streets. All small business in the town had been crushed, so it seemed.

But as I made more trips to that town over the years my son attended there, I saw a gradual change. The empty storefronts in that downtown ghost town started to fill again. Only this time they filled with businesses for which WalMart presented no competition.

Downtown became alive again with tanning spas, antique shops, specialty businesses of all kinds. In the span of a couple of years, that downtown went from desolate to bright and lively once again.

I don't wish to diminish the anguish that many of those old-time business owners faced as their long-time businesses crumbled. Nor do I wish to celebrate WalMart. I find a lot in their business tactics that turn me off. But I just want to point out that entrepreneurs find a way to adapt.

I'm sure that some of the business owners who closed their businesses retired. Some moved away. Some resigned themselves to working for someone else. But a good number of those business owners simply started over with new businesses that were immune to changes that WalMart had brought.

So will the payment of "connectivity fees" destroy the opportunity for people to start a business on the Web? I think not.

A true entrepreneur is resiliant and resourceful. A true entrepreneur doesn't have to have business conditions always stacked in his or her favor in order to succeed. A true entrepreneur will find a need that customers need filled and will find a way to fill it—no matter what the business conditions may be.

Which is all the more reason to become a true entrepreneur.
Jeff