1. the worth of an innovation is relative to the previous methods available. So in your example, it would be reasonable for each of the workers to have altavist

1. the worth of an innovation is relative to the previous methods available. So in your example, it would be reasonable for each of the workers to have altavista or whatever (i.e. not limited to 100 pages of google search). 2. This is more subtle: the value of an innovation doesn't vary necessarily linearly with some attribute of it. This is because an innovation has no intrinsic value - it only has value when in the hands of a person who needs it. That is, value is an attribute of the need, not the innovation. Might sound academic, but it matters when an innovation is more powerful than needed. It gets better and better, but nobody care (see The Innovator's Dilemma). In your example, oddly enough, latency really does matter (though you can imagine a certain speed where it's indistinguishable from instant for practical purposes, probably around 100ms). Also in your example, the size of the internet also matters, because the more there is, the more likely the desired answer is present, and the more likely it is to be relevant. So, this subtle point isn't relevant o your specific example, but I think it is relevant to your concept of measurement with a "scale of innovation", in general.