Shopping for the Web

We put a lot of trust into online shopping: sharing our names,
addresses, and handing over money. In return, we have faith that
the purchased item appears at our doorstep in a few days or
weeks. That trust didn’t come easily. In 1995, we took our first
steps out of the brick and mortar store to load our digital
shopping cart. 

Robert Spector reveals how Amazon.com’s business foundations are
in data—and being early to the internet. Sandeep Krishnamurthy
recounts the rise of eBay. Angela Robinson describes the
technology that makes secure transactions and trustworthy
e-commerce possible. Kartik Shastri shares how difficult it was
to store and process consumer data. And Katie Wilson explains how
some big tech companies are different from previous monopolies,
but are following many of the same paths.

If you want to read up on some of our research on web design, you
can check out all our bonus material over at
redhat.com/commandlineheroes. The page is built in the style of
1995—check it out.

Follow along with the episode transcript.