Society and internet on 2014
Society and Internet on the year 2014 by Luis Fernandez
Internet penetration in 2004 was 12.7% on 2004 ; penetration grew rapidly on higher income economies and more slowly on lower income economies (because the cost of technology as a proportion of disposable income). Because of this, high-income economies became overwhelmed by information, creating demand for better search engines capable of really understanding users requests for information and getting them what they really needed. The wider availability of high quality information led to higher levels of productivity in these societies. It was also because of the high penetration of the Internet in these high-income economies, that communications became the cheapest of all utilities and broadband the norm. This also had an impact on productivity, because people could now, thanks to virtually free voice over IP and the subsequent development of free video and very cheap 3D video over IP, work from home and home no longer had to be in a large city, but rather in small towns, where quality of life was much higher (no pollution, crime, traffic jams, no parking space, etc). People would then go to the cities for entertainment; whenever suited them best according to their work schedules (not just on the weekends). Increases in productivity meant that people now had more time available and many used this available time to specialize and provide remote professional services to customers worldwide in very specialized areas of knowledge. These experts would be based wherever made most sense for them, and could work effectively with customers anywhere in the world (thanks to cheap 3D technologies, travel was no longer needed for face to face meetings). The service of these professionals will be rated by a global interconnected web of users; using services combining rating your favorite merchant in Amazon and using Linkedin to find professionals via referrals. It will be, because of all these advancements in technology that the world real estate market bubble will finally burst bringing the world economy into a prolonged recession: the most valuable pieces of land in 2004 where located in large cities because many people in most high income economies kept buying property at high levels of debt, in the hope to make a property because of the continued increase in prices of property, creating an upward spiral, a bubble and a savings depleted economy living stretched and on credit. Property would be highly valued. People would put all their money and effort in buying properties that lost their value because of the introduction of the breakthroughs in Internet and communications technology.