At the turn of the 20th century, the popularity of the automobile relied upon the investment into paved roads. The popularity of internet-born brands will depend on infrastructural development of its own. To understand where we stand in this period in time, consider this John Steinbeck quote from 1962:
With the current administration’s target on TikTok and its proposed acquisition, I began to think about the second- and third-order effects of the politicization of the digital media and commerce markets. This is one of the first moments in American history where government policy proposed a limitation on a widely used consumer technology.
In the two years that I sat at that Austin coffee house each day, it felt like I found an arbitrage opportunity: a free education. But the credit was none my own. The room over-indexed on successful executives and entrepreneurs who’d seen material success in the booming Texas city. I listened intently. The majority of the ideas came from business partners, waiters, investors, entrepreneurs, clergy, artists, and bystanders who were enthusiastic about their pursuits. Their conversations filled gaps in my thinking. It was a period of information synthesis: a process of integrating information from disparate sources into a coherent whole.
