The online world is the best friction reducing agent known to man. Implications are fairly “interesting”:
– The more your industry can go online, the lower the overall margins
– The lower the margins, the more it resolves to players who have massive scale and/or those operating at subsistence costs (did someone say User Generated Content)
– In a global market, those with the least friction lose – anyone with true “free trade” will be hollowed out by those with a few barriers. This has some implications on ‘Net policy for countries, as it is clear that being a bit more frictitious than your trading partners may help – and it looks like we may have to build the Internet with a bit of friction included, if it is actually going to create rather than continually destroy value. One to watch…..
via broadstuff.com
Also has implications for PR and journalism…..