In this paean to the good old days, Nick Carr illuminates a seldom seen drawback to transparency -- the fact that things are just too easy. To whit:
Villages have been overrun by cars and lorries whose drivers robotically follow the instructions dispensed by their satellite navigation systems. The International Herald Tribune reports (tinyurl.com/24zcyg) that the parish council of Barrow Gurney has even requested, fruitlessly, that the town be erased from the maps used by the makers of navigation devices.
And also:
Just ask the hardcore surfers who dedicate themselves to finding the best waves. They used to be able to keep their favourite beaches secret, riding their boards in relative solitude. But in recent months people have begun putting up video cameras, known as surfcams, along remote shorelines and streaming the video over the internet.
And finally:
At the same time, though, transparency is erasing the advantages that once went to the intrepid, the dogged and the resourceful. The surfer who through pluck and persistence found the perfect wave off an undiscovered stretch of beach is being elbowed out by the lazy masses who can discover the same wave with just a few mouse clicks. The commuter who pored over printed maps to find a shortcut to work finds herself stuck in a jam with the GPS-enabled multitudes.
You have to wonder whether, as what was once opaque is made transparent, the bolder among us will lose the incentive to strike out for undiscovered territory. What's the point when every secret becomes, in a real-time instant, common knowledge?
A see-through world may not be all that it's cracked up to be. We may find that as we come to know everything about everything, we all end up in the same mess together.
Somehow, I just don't think so. :) Nick sounds like the people who discover a new cool band, watch them play in small clubs, then when they make it big, turn away in disgust.
Where I agree with Nick is that the lag time between discovery and commoditization is getting shorter and shorter -- trends move faster and are more transient, cool experiences are shared across geographies and demographics more rapidly than ever and the inaccessible is no accessible. Heck, I call this a good thing....