Abstract

Great Britain led the first industrial revolution with the invention of the commercial steam engine. The invention revolutionized communication and transportation and led to many other industrial developments, not just in Britain but around the world. In the second industrial revolution, the United States was primarily in the lead, with the telephone revolutionizing communication this time. In the third industrial revolution, the Internet was the key factor; it succeeded because it was conceived as a public infrastructure technology, not a proprietary technology (Carr, 2003). The Internet has transformed the world economic landscape, and this transformation is expected to continue with the development of Internet of Things (IoT), arguably the driver of the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0. Rifkin (2014) emphasizes connectivity in his anticipation of a collaborative economy that will replace the capital system in its current form—with the IoT as the main driver. In effect, the rapid progress of smart things is paving the way to a more collaborative world (Kanter and Litow, 2009).