The only revenue stream that ever worked on the 'net was ad
revenue and the only people making it are the ad distributors.
But they'll always be straightjacketed. And the increasing
prices they're charging is going to wreck them eventually.
They're not going down a smart path but they're all wrapped up
in Kurzweilian magic dreams of singularities, so they can't see
it. They won't see the 'next' thing. I like Google, mind you.
Very useful. But they got their head in the clouds. Then again,
so is most of economics generally. They can toss fancy math and
throw quantum computers at it, but it's just covering up
bullshit with numbers and wooing idiots with cash and fancy
speeches.
Big Data: Giant Excel Spreadsheet. Cloud: Renting a Backup
System.
Kurzweil: Self-aware computers in 50 years Hawking/Elon: AI
robots will destroy us, start a petition! Meanwhile, same shitty
business model. Like Facebooks: Gather consumer information,
sell mailing lists to advertisers.
smoke 'n mirrors. Worst part is, I think they believe it
themselves.
