Mr. Gross-Selbeck, we want to talk about how Germany succeeds in digitization.

The course of this can partly be seen in your own professional career, because you were managing director of Ebay in Germany, then chairman of the board of Xing and are now senior partner of the consulting company BCG.

First, a look back: From today's perspective, what role did eBay actually play in the history of the Internet?

Alexander Armbruster

Responsible editor for business online.

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Carsten Knop

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The role of this company cannot be overestimated.

In the noughties, after the initial internet euphoria, a great disappointment developed because after the bursting of the dot-com bubble, many hopes were not fulfilled, also in the area of ​​e-commerce.

Although numerous digital applications already existed back then and were to become widespread ten years later, the technology was not yet mature enough to enable a user-friendly experience.

Ebay, on the other hand, was one of the very few models that was already suitable for the masses at the time.

How so?

The point was to buy and sell in a very simple way, primarily from private to private - a classic flea market with used products, translated into digital.

This triggered great enthusiasm, especially in Germany, and the German market even became the largest in the world for Ebay at the time.

There were many so-called power sellers, i.e. micro-enterprises and micro-entrepreneurs, who very successfully built their own businesses with the help of Ebay.

That was something completely new at the time.

By then, the Internet had already entered the “prosumer” phase, so to speak, in which there were many participants who had both produced and consumed something, private individuals sold goods to private individuals, or they created content such as blogs and other content at the same time read or heard.

Social networks then became part of this hands-on network, and their members can also produce and consume content.

Where are we today, at the beginning of 2023, when it comes to the internet as a mass technology?

Today we often talk about Web 3.0, a decentralized web.

This architecture differs from the structures that have emerged over the past few decades because it is closer to the original ideals of the Internet.

Namely?

From the very beginning of the Internet, it was all about decentralization.

However, with the rise of primarily American technology platforms, a few corporations have established themselves in the recent past that provide important parts of the Internet such as search engines, e-mail, social media or the cloud in the form of centralized services.

A counter-movement to this is trying, among other things, to revive the original Internet idea using blockchain technology – with the aim of giving the individual more control again, for example with decentralized currencies.

That's ultimately behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but it's also about other areas, away from centralized platforms towards a more decentralized architecture.

Nevertheless, we are still at the very beginning.

The Americans in particular have managed to set up large Internet platforms, the only other country that has really succeeded in doing this is China.

Even if you may no longer be able to hear the question: why has this unfortunately not succeeded in Germany and Europe?