Gartner: The Net killed media; Financial services, healthcare next

The Internet has killed the basic economics of the media industry and healthcare and the financial services industry may be next.

That's the message from one of Gartner's so-called "maverick" presentations where analysts go out on a limb. Mark Stahlman and Michael McGuire did the presentation at the Gartner Symposium ITXpo and recapped how the Net killed the media industry by disaggregating content, messing up the vertically integrated model and leaving the industry flailing to please consumers and protect turf with DRM, lawsuits and other silly ideas.

But we know that story already.

The next industries that could be rattled by the Internet are healthcare and financial services. The argument goes like this: Consumers have their life online, are looking for integrated experiences and want to assemble digital teams in the clouds.

Meanwhile, there are two inefficient industries ripe for blowing up: Healthcare and financial services.

Stahlman and McGuire note that personal health records, choices for treatments and alternatives for prevention and monitoring along with social networking all spell doom for health care as we know it. Toss in how the Internet--and the access to top experts everywhere--can make health care more efficient and you have a similar situation to the media industry.

It's a similar story for financial services--or wealthcare. Financial histories and goals will be mapped, the Net will cut advisory fees and you will benefit from the experience of the crowd and simulate various portfolios.

As for the money slide, here it is:

Sounds great but...it's a bit of a stretch. Both financial services and healthcare are regulated and it's not like some startup can just walk in and blow up business models. Meanwhile, it's unclear whether digital natives can push things along. Those young folks are healthy so they're not looking to change health care per se and they are broke so who cares about financial services.

And then you toss in the fact that Gartner's dynamic duo assumes that people will be comfortable putting their financial and health histories in the cloud and you can see where these prognostications are dicey.

Stahlman and McGuire acknowledge the risks to their predictions--and security is a big one. But I don't think they are completely wrong about financial services and healthcare. The big question is timing--it will take a long time to overcome hurdles. But let's hope financial services and health care gets upended by the Net. Both could use a revolution.