While you're right, you're also only right as far as you go. By far, most of the value of the internet remains in the exchange of information, even today. By information I mean, of course, Pr0n. It was teenage nerds discovering free pr0n that blew the internet up, and it's hard to even compare any other form of use in terms of bandwidth now. It's also very hard to define. Is Instagram mostly pr0n, or mostly not?

Sure it's become far more possible to buy stuff online, but in terms of data flow, sheer bandwidth, I don't think any other market approaches pr0n today. If you have metrics that discuss this, I'd be interested in seeing them. I note black markets today remain an unacknowleded but penultimate percentage of all commerce. Traditional economics often fail to even consider such markets, but in reality coke was probably the second largest market in Fla. in the '90s, right after government (much of which was also dependent on coke, insofar as it was dedicated to law enforcement).

It's difficult to quantify for several reasons, and not only because of self-reporting flaws due to social matters. Pr0n is highly subsidized for purposes that are very unclear, as it has huge but unknown value to certain parties as means of creating social control, for example. It's impact is far larger than even the immense amount of money generated or expended on it.

Thanks!