In less than a generation, the “net” could become home to the bulk of our significant economic activity – the common marketplace of choice, our place of work, our refuge for leisure, our very medium of exchange. This will have a profound impact on the balance of power among nations, corporations, and individuals … information, by its essential nature, is difficult to restrain, command, tax, ignore, or suppress. It will soon be impossible for sovereigns to monitor and manipulate the streams of data that will become the substance of our commerce. While the state has always had the power to seize a coal mine or an oil well or a paycheck, most often in the name of “the public good,” no government can seize an idea. It is a lamentable fact that the owner of a threatened coal mine cannot spirit his property into the night. But an idea? An idea can cross the world in milliseconds.
Predictor: Frezza, Bill
Prediction, in context:On the web site for DigitaLiberty, co-founder Bill Frezza, a telecommunications industry veteran, takes issue with the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s support of the 1993 Digital Telephony bill and presents his new organization’s view of how the world will change in a networked communications age. Frezza writes: ”In less than a generation, the ‘net’ could become home to the bulk of our significant economic activity – the common marketplace of choice, our place of work, our refuge for leisure, our very medium of exchange. This will have a profound impact on the balance of power among nations, corporations, and individuals … information, by its essential nature, is difficult to restrain, command, tax, ignore, or suppress. It will soon be impossible for sovereigns to monitor and manipulate the streams of data that will become the substance of our commerce. While the state has always had the power to seize a coal mine or an oil well or a paycheck, most often in the name of ‘the public good,’ no government can seize an idea. It is a lamentable fact that the owner of a threatened coal mine cannot spirit his property into the night. But an idea? An idea can cross the world in milliseconds.”
Date of prediction: December 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: DigitaLiberty
Title, headline, chapter name: The Crucible of Radical Capitalism: How the Information Revolution Will Transform the Politics of Power
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Lexis-Nexis
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney