Walled Gardens of the Infocalypse

A friend once called the plummeting cost of information “The Infocalypse”. So much info flying everywhere might soon fry our brains.

A bit dramatic, but there’s an economic reality here. Info costs were the main driver of many social and commercial institutions and relationships for most of human history. They keep dropping, changing everything.

When they get low enough, the most important structures may move from those that lower info costs to those that raise it. Or at least raise the cost of certain types of info to leave space just for the desired kind in a sea of noise.

It’s possible the wide open web will be considered gauche before long, and semi-private communities and gated, filtered, managed info markets will take over.

The internet is so, so young. It may look nothing like itself in a decade or two.

How exciting!