IN THE DECADE of 1960s, four young men from Liverpool, England changed face of popular culture for an entire generation. The Beatles transformed music industry by changing underlying methods of song writing, recording, and even performance. They changed lyrics and beat, and introduced nontraditional instruments and new recording methods. The music industry has not been same since. A similar revolution is taking place in healthcare. One individual, group, government, or company is not driving this revolution; rather, it is being driven by one ubiquitous, unifying technology-the Internet. However, as pointed out by DeLuca, Internet is a tool, not an industry. It is a tool that is transforming an industry. In his comments to U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee on June 17, 1999, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan observed that the way America does business is in midst of significant transformation. Nowhere is this more true than in America's healthcare delivery system. Patients are frustrated with limited choices and what they perceive as unnecessary barriers to provider access. When Helen Hunts character Carol Connelly in movie As Good as It Gets labels HMOs with a string of expletives, audiences in movie theatres across country stood and cheered. Clearly patients believe healthcare system is highly dysfunctional, and as both Alemi and Deluca point out, e-health revolution offers a ray of hope. Alemi rightfully points out that so far many of a health business models have not proven to be long-term Wall Street success stories. One of truths cited by DeLuca is that e-health means accepting a changed and not yet fully emerged business model. How much of this trend is a result of changing dynamics on Wall Street versus flawed business models is not yet clear. The old Internet paradigm on Wall Street was to reward companies that spent well in excess of their revenues to build brand and critical mass. Key valuation measures were intangibles such as first-mover advantage, companies with known management teams, blue-chip venture capital partners, ability to deliver a steady stream of press releases, and consistent general media coverage. But with technology and Internet sector stock market correction that occurred in spring of 2000, older paradigm measures once again took hold. Metrics of profitability, cash burn and stability, predictability, and scalability of earnings are new Wall Street Internet company valuation criteria. Clearly, we do not live in a perfect world, and, Adam Smith's views to contrary, this is very true on Wall Street. Most investment analysts in sector expect market to correct itself following a somewhat painful process of bankruptcies, mergers, and acquisitions-the Darwinian theory of survival of fittest in action. We are still early in evolution of e-- health as a business enterprise. The first step toward commercial success (after, of course, having a technology that works) for most of commercial e-health players is building sufficient critical mass using value-added technologies so as to make it worthwhile for various constituencies to use product. The economics of e-health will be driven by basic understanding of Metcalfe's law: The value of a network increases exponentially as number of connections increase. Thus, realization of DeLuca's hoped-for promise for e-health and Alemi's vision of a virtual managed care organization will be driven by an increase in number of connections, which in turn will be driven primarily by three factors: empowerment of consumer, empowerment of physician, and payer participation. CONSUMER EMPOWERMENT Consumer empowerment is already a force America's healthcare delivery system must reckon with. Much of growth of e-health has been driven by overall growth of Internet itself. The Internet has touched lives of more than 50 million Americans in a mere five years-a mark achieved by television after a full 13 years and by radio after a whopping 38 years. …