The internet has been a wonderful disappointment. As Nasdaq in the US has slumped, Germany's Neuermarkt collapsed and the Techmark in London shrivelled, investors do not need much reminding about how new media stocks have failed to deliver.

Someone who spent $23,700 buying 100 Yahoo! shares at the beginning of last year and now finds themselves sitting on a holding worth roughly $1,400 knows all about how the internet has underwhelmed.

Warren Buffett, the stalwart investor in traditional stocks, has recently been on hand to remind people quite how foolish they were to buy into projections rather than performance, revenues rather than earnings.

And one of the thousands of people who subscribed to the broadband internet service offered by the cable operator UPC in the Netherlands last year - only to discover the system crashed or delivered data at excruciatingly slow speeds - can tell you plenty about web frustration.

But the danger in these 'I-told-you-so' times is that in the widespread dotcom disillusionment people will lose sight of what was inspiring about the net.

For the internet has meant many things - music piracy, cheap phone calls, e-mail romances, global viruses and a faster world. But, essentially, it has changed the relationship between the individual and the institution.

This revolution has been acutely obvious in politics. By giving immediate access to a mass audience, the internet has provided a platform for opposition, dissident and generally unwanted voices.

Whether it has been the revelations of the Drudge Report in Washington DC or the orchestration of Falun Gong activists in Beijing, the internet has occasionally up-ended the relationship between the citizen and the state.

But for many people the breakdown of traditional boundaries has been less dramatic. It has been commercial.

Rather like the channel tunnel or Concorde, the internet has been a mammoth commercial venture which has greatly excited private investors, but so far proved more rewarding to the people who use it than the people who built it.

Whether it has been putting pressure on the price point of compact discs and books or providing free access to information which undercuts the businesses of established publishers, the internet has been the consumer's friend. (That is, of course, when it works.)

Inside the workplace, too, the internet has seemed to empower the little guy - or, at least, the talented, enterprising little guy.

One superficial measure of that has been the change in dresscode. Take a wander round the World Financial Center in Manhattan and it is a sea of casualwear. The pinstripes of the City of London, too, have almost become a rarity. The implicit message is that employers have become more flexible.

For a while, in fact, the spirit of T-shirt wearing entrepreneurship, best embodied by the start-ups of Silicon Valley, shook out much of the stuffiness in more traditional businesses.

Media companies, in particular, were shaken up. The prudent were punished for their poverty of ambition, the adventurous were treated as visionaries. In turn, this meant that companies were willing to ignore corporate tradition and change.

Bertelsmann, the giant German media group, was one of the standard-bearers for these exciting times. From buying an early stake in America Online to transforming the old book club business into a global company focused on entertainment and e-commerce, Thomas Middelhoff, the company's chief executive, was consistently exhorting his group to transform itself at "internet speed".

But what now that Wall Street and the City are not rewarding adventurism? What now that people are no longer convinced that online traffic will translate into online advertising revenues? What now that companies are boasting about their caution rather than their courage?

Will the suits creep back into the office? Will the free lunch for the consumer disappear from the menu? Will employers be less flexible when it comes to their staff? And will companies shy away from embracing change?

In the short term, the answer, sadly, is yes. The prospects of a slowdown in the economies of the developed world has meant a lurch back towards greater corporate conservatism.

But it cannot last. The internet, perhaps because it has offered so much for free, has created a large and loyal bunch of people comfortable with screen-based transactions. In short, they are happy to shop and read and communicate online. That is a permanent shift in habit, as certain to endure among consumers as it is among companies.

The cultural side-effects have made businesses more innovative and productive. It is no accident that the internet revolution has coincided with the highest levels of productivity in European and US history.

Nor has everyone given up on the web - even as an investment.

Jean-Marie Messier, chief executive of the French media and communications group Vivendi Universal, says: "What are the consequences of the 'e-crack'? The consequences are opportunities. Some of these businesses have become really cheap and some of these businesses are really good."

The collapse in the value of internet stocks is likely to mean, therefore, a continuing consolidation wave. More established parts of the communications and media sectors may be knuckling down for tougher economic times, but mergers and acquisitions are likely to continue in the online area.

To some, the dotcom bubble may seem to have been a short-lived revolution. But with faster connections and more content online, there is more disappointment but even more wonderful stuff to come.