Small-scale entrepreneurship on the early web: Socio-economical practices of local/regional businesses

The paper explores small-scale entrepreneurship on the early web, specifically identifying socio-economical practices of local/regional business in the Netherlands during the emergence of the new economy in the mid-90s and early 2000s. The new economy has been described in prior research as not only a novel, financial system but also as a cultural shift. Public media highlight the widespread optimism and subsequent disillusionment of the dot-com era; a period in which many traditional local/regional businesses migrated to the digital realm. In the Netherlands, a push is notable from ideological initiatives and state actors to make the internet accessible and functional for everyone. One can identify an interesting mix of neoliberalism, commercialism, and individualism, as well as everydayness and amateurism that created the backdrop against which local/regional industries took their businesses online for the first time. Following a grassroots approach and a mixed methodology, including computational analysis and content examination of archived websites, the research identifies the integration of domestic and commercial spheres on early websites, as well as a shift towards more professionalized e-business strategies over time. The paper contributes to the field by theorizing small-scale entrepreneurship in the move of local/regional businesses onto the web, offering a methodological framework for archival exploration, and enriching the historiography of the Dutch public web and the new economy from a bottom-up perspective. By foregrounding local/regional perspectives, it aims to provide a cultural-historical understanding of the web and encourages comparative analysis between under-studied narratives and dominant interpretations in the field of Internet History.