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> These innovations, the latter in capital and former in information, hold their social value in the tangible progress they enable. The author's point is that w

> These innovations, the latter in capital and former in information, hold their social value in the tangible progress they enable. The author's point is that we are still waiting for that tangible progress that these information multipliers were expected to spore. Ebay? Etsy? Kickstarter? Hipmunk? Netflix? Amazon? When it comes to commerce and trade, the internet has definitely had a real, tangible effect on our societies. The above examples are just some services that make it easier and cheaper to connect buyers and sellers, and that have rationalized delivery-chains which in turn led to massively cheaper prices for end consumers. Finding things to buy has never been easier. Finding buyers for your stuff has never been easier. Finding the globally cheapest price for stuff has never been easier.

JumpCrisscross 15y ago
Hmm, I suppose I'm wiggling a bit here, but I'm tryin to pin down why, after quitting a job on Wall Street and checking out Silcon Valley I left with a feeling that the missions are largely superfluous (I'm less interested in delighting people than profoundly changing their realities). Maybe tangible is the wrong word; perhaps innovating on the commanding heights of the economy is more apt. By this measure Google does qualify as a fundamental innovation as it retraces the market for information. The others, energy, materials, transportation, military, etc. are seeing incremental innovation but not yet breakthroughs. Exceptions may be held as graphene and carbon fibre, self-driving cars, automated weapons systems, etc. Disclaimer: I am not Malcolm Gladwell; I love being delighted and don't want to weigh down one type of innovation under another. But I do think there are different types of innovation and that we need a balance. The balance today seems to be skewed, probably due to regulatory factors that will even themselves out in inter-generational and inter-superpower timescales, but skewed nonetheless.

JumpCrisscross 15y ago

Hmm, I suppose I'm wiggling a bit here, but I'm tryin to pin down why, after quitting a job on Wall Street and checking out Silcon Valley I left with a feeling that the missions are largely superfluous (I'm less interested in delighting people than profoundly changing their realities). Maybe tangible is the wrong word; perhaps innovating on the commanding heights of the economy is more apt. By this measure Google does qualify as a fundamental innovation as it retraces the market for information. The others, energy, materials, transportation, military, etc. are seeing incremental innovation but not yet breakthroughs. Exceptions may be held as graphene and carbon fibre, self-driving cars, automated weapons systems, etc. Disclaimer: I am not Malcolm Gladwell; I love being delighted and don't want to weigh down one type of innovation under another. But I do think there are different types of innovation and that we need a balance. The balance today seems to be skewed, probably due to regulatory factors that will even themselves out in inter-generational and inter-superpower timescales, but skewed nonetheless.