The 90's saw the emergence of brick and mortar giants like Barnes and Nobles and Walmart to a great extent. Offline shopping with a varied experience was the key and so these formats caught attention as they offered great benefits to consumers. Walmart offered everyday low prices and Barnes and Nobles offered a great ambience and a great reading experience for customers who walked in.
These brands were really big and Walmart still has great brand equity. The internet explosion in the 90's basically gave people the freedom of convenience. Thereby rose purely online channels like Amazon and Napster, where shopping online became an easy convenient. Amazon offered both a huge array of books and other reading material as well as competed with Walmart on everyday low pricing, with deals of the day and deals of the hour. Moreover it also gave ultimate convenience as the user experience of standing in long queues, picking heavy bags and transporting it back home were removed. This gave users the luxury of choice at their doorstep.
Another digital disruption was brought about by Netflix, when they adopted the TV users viewing habit and modified content to an "Anytime viewing" versus the scheduled viewing that the users did on Television. Netflix offered an array of new channels which were interesting and comparable (even better in some cases) versus Television programming.
The next wave came when Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn transformed social networking and were heavily adopted.
Todays (or rather tomorrows) technology is Blockchain. Blockchain as a technology has disrupted most industries including banking, supply chain and social connections. The various features like Decentralization, immutability, timestamping and Smart Contracts are the future and will define how it will be the ultimate disruptor in the digital space. Bitcoin is easily the most revolutionary innovation on the blockchain and there are thousand of such innovations which aim at creating a parallel universe. So people who invest in this space must do so for the immense potential this has. If you invest in the right products, and have patience, "Moon" is not that far away