> (Was it ever, in history?) Oh yeah, the current situation is highly abnormal. With one giant exception : wind-powered ships do not suffer from this issue !

> (Was it ever, in history?) Oh yeah, the current situation is highly abnormal. With one giant exception : wind-powered ships do not suffer from this issue ! https://acoup.blog/2020/08/21/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-iv-markets-and-non-farmers/ https://acoup.blog/2020/08/21/collections-bread-how-did-they... https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/orbis-2.png https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/orbi... > Using the figures from the Price Edict of Diocletian, we tend to estimate that river transport was five times cheaper than land transport, and sea-transport was twenty times cheaper than land transport. (Not sure if that river transport of bulk grains was mostly by boats or by barges pulled by pack animals ?) In fact, Rome itself not only got started as a cross-roads/waterways/seaways (large enough river for big sea ships to go up) for people to gather and trade, it could never have reached its ancient size of 0.5-1 M people without sea shipping !