One could argue that a better medium for quality information could be the CD-rom technology, which is a ``physical medium''. While a piece of the database on the Internet is provided simply by altering the contents of the disk storage to a computer that is connected to the net, a CD-rom based database must be physically packaged and distributed to the receiving end. This can be advantageous in determining the limits of the production and in order to stabilize a composition. Network based information, on the other hand, tends to change constantly, partly giving you as a consumer the feeling that you are missing something.
It is likely that CD-rom technology will be important for a number of years, but as the networks becomes more and more stable and powerful the ``non-physical'' means of providing the information will become more important.