At the dawn of the new millennium (or 12 months on depending on your view) a spectre is haunting the information technology industry: it is the spectre of a profitless internet, a network linking hundreds of millions of human beings across the world without simultaneously generating gigantic profits for private companies.

Take the transport analogy. At the beginning of the 20th century a handful of people were driving some sort of car. The car is inherently an inefficient means of transporting large numbers of people (especially when traffic jams stop them moving). But it was obvious that this was a profitable means of mass transport, and over the next few decades the whole of the world was transformed into a system for supporting the car.

By the second half of the century most of the world's largest industrial companies (oil, steel, glass, rubber) were integrally linked to private car transportation by a relatively small portion of the world's population. Major cities were transformed by the requirement for car friendly roads. Even death became redefined by traffic accidents and car related lead and asbestos poisoning.

The internet is often compared to the road system, although it carries information (in its broadest definition) rather than people and objects. 20th century capitalism rebuilt the world in part around a very profitable private transport system. In the same way 21st century capitalism dreams of privatising the information requirements of every individual who can afford to pay, and building profitable empires around these.

Many of the building blocks are in place. A handful of media giants and a couple of dozen followers now control most of the world's production and distribution of film, television, music, books, newspapers and magazines as well as photo and film archives, scientific publications and so much more.

Alongside this there are growing legal limitations to using the internet to exchange information between individuals. But this was only part of the game. As well as blocking free distribution of information over the internet, capitalism needs to be able to use it to sell things.

Last year will go down in history as the collapse of the first major round of ``business to consumer" or ``B2C'' internet business. The figures are impressive. Some hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost by investors in the past couple of years. Most of these have ended up in the pockets of (or spent by) advertising companies.

The coming year will see a similar collapse of ``business to business" or ``B2B'' investments. There are currently some 10,000 B2B trading arrangements planned. Some have already failed after investing tens of millions of dollars. Most are expected to follow suit.

So where is the information equivalent of the car? Where is that object of desire that hundreds of millions of consumers will spend much of their working lives paying for? Instead we have the internet, convenient for many purposes and relatively cheap. It's more like a bicycle than a car.

BY GREG

HARRIS