With the advent of the Internet, it became possible to route any financial transaction over telephone lines (and later, radio waves). By the 1990's, it had become relatively commonplace to buy, sell, and auction items with one's computer. Within 25 years, this was almost the only way to do any shopping at all in the developed nations. All a consumer needed to do was search for an item, and a specialized program could compare and display different companies' versions of it. This was safer, easier for the consumer, and saved expenses on travel and shipping and, until 2015 C.E., taxes. Of course, such a Wonder tends to lead to rampant capitalism, so it took years for such technology to be effectively utilized in communist and totalitarian regimes.