Logistics as Entertainment

Freakonomics author Steven Levitt makes an observation of how the internet is being used to achieve significant competitive advantage extracted from an experience with ordering Domino's pizza online (particularly relevant to those of us in industries that aren't generally early adopters of information technology):

Of all the things the internet rewards and encourages, great logistics must be near the top of the list. Companies like Amazon and Domino’s thrive because they are better at getting their products quickly to customers than their competitors.

Then, of course, there is the punishment that the internet delivers to those who are logistically challenged.

Update: More from the Club for Growth that points to a recent study of the emails of 180 million people concluding that "any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation". As the Club for Growth notes:

As the Internet grows and social networks thicken as more people get connected, the ability to talk, trade, and associate with people around the world will be enormous. And that interconnectivity will either smash all the existing barriers that separate us or it will put enormous pressure on policy makers [ed. and managers] to tear them down. The Internet is nothing if it isn't freedom.