Vision

Many people think that information technology (IT) will radically change society as we know it. They expect that the combination of computers, consumer electronics and telecommunications will lead to the creation of a world-wide IT infrastructure, which will form the basis for a new socio-economic revolution. The media use the phrase Information Revolution. Governments and industries all over the world have growing expectations of the possibilities IT offers. Governments of the western countries therefore devote great attention to the so-called Digital Highway, which is to be the pillar of a world-wide IT infrastructure.

Still, there are many questions that need to be answered:

• Is IT really capable of causing a new socio-economic revolution?
• How should we picture such a socio-economic revolution?
• What does a world-wide IT infrastructure look like?
• Which socio-cultural consequences will the growing application of IT have?
• What is our idea of the future of IT?
• Which barriers do we have to cross to realise our vision?

In this chapter we provide a number of answers to these questions. We do so by describing our own idea of the social developments that are possible with IT. In retrospect, we also compare macro-economic developments in the past with the present situation.