Where Are You on the Web?

It is 1793, and in Georgia, a young schoolteacher named Eli Whitney has just invented something called the cotton gin. It is a wondrous contraption: A battery of saws pulls raw cotton strands through a grid, separating seeds from fiber at a rate of hundreds of seeds per minute. Powered by hand, by water, or by horse, it does the work of as many as 50 men.

It is soon apparent that Whitney's creation will change the face of the cotton trade. With the cost of labor lowered so dramatically, farms will multiply across the South and the East. Everyone will grow cotton. Everyone will wear cotton. Cotton merchants will grow rich. Not incidentally, slavery will flourish.

What isn't apparent in 1793 is just how far-reaching the machine's economic impact will be. Whitney's gin, combined with the advent of steam-powered spinning machines from England, will open the way for the construction of the first modern-style factories. Row after row of spinning machines will feed room after room of weavers. Mass production will replace handmade piecework.

Entrepreneurs of that era will apply similar technologies to other, comparable manufacturing processes. In industry after industry, they will bring under one roof what had been a patchwork of cottage enterprises. Home-based proprietors will become employees. Managers and management systems will emerge to control these newly centralized operations. The world will witness the birth of entirely new organizational structures. Whitney's gin will spin out modern industry.

Throughout history, this is how technological revolutions have unfolded. The true import of an invention is rarely evident at its birth. Most of us simply lack the imagination to envision the full scope of potential change in our lives. We are too invested in the present to consider the possibility of a threatening -- or even a promising -- future.

The Internet, though, is different. As far as most people are concerned, the Net is still brand-new, unformed, just out of the gate. America Online made the transition from curiosity to legitimate phenomenon only about two years ago, and Amazon.com made that leap only last year. EBay mania is less than a year old. Yet we all recognize that the Net is something (in the insistent words of priceline.com pitchman William Shatner) "big -- really big." We are staring discontinuity in the face, and this time we all know it.

The Internet is a new species of community, a new paradigm for communication, a new system for distribution. Because it is all three of these things at once, it is capable of destroying existing business models in dozens of industries -- if not today, then very soon. Traditional retailing -- poof. Banking -- poof. Mutual funds -- poof.

We know all of this not because we are any braver or smarter than people were in 1793, but because the evidence of rapid destruction is already before our eyes. Relationships between buyers and sellers are changing. The distinction between manufacturers and distributors is blurring. Starbucks is selling furniture online. Dell Computer is moving from selling only computers to offering all kinds of electronic products. Commodities such as steel and coal are finding new markets -- complete with new relationships -- in the dotcom world. No one professes to know where all of this is headed, but nearly everyone agrees that the coming change will be, well, big -- really big.

This fundamental agreement underlies the responses to the latest Fast Company - Roper Starch Worldwide online survey. We set out to gauge the state of the Net -- how people use it, and how much; what they like, and what they don't like, about its features; and how the technology serves, or doesn't serve, their needs. Here's what we learned.

The Net Is Big -- Really ? Well, You Know

Survey respondents indicate that about 33% of their time online is dedicated to work activities; most of the time that they spend on the Net, they report, is dedicated to personal pursuits. In the workplace, men spend roughly 50% more time online (one and a half hours per day) than women do, while older workers spend about as much time surfing each day as their younger colleagues do. On the home front, there is not much of a gender difference in the amount of time that people spend online. Younger people, meanwhile, are far more likely than older people to spend two hours a day or more surfing at home.

Certainly, respondents to this survey do not form a cross-section of the U.S. population -- since, by definition, everyone whom we surveyed is already online. But the survey's results do tell us why these people are online and why they're spending so much time there. The simple answer: The Internet adds real value to their lives. Presented with a series of statements, 94% of respondents agree that the Net makes communication easier, 96% agree that it "lets people get information quickly," and 82% agree that it "empowers consumers."