The World's Most Valuable Resource is No Longer Oil, But Data (economist.com) 86
An oil refinery is an industrial cathedral, a place of power, drama and dark recesses: ornate cracking towers are its gothic pinnacles, flaring gas its stained glass, the stench of hydrocarbons its heady incense. Data centres, in contrast, offer a less obvious spectacle: windowless grey buildings that boast no height or ornament, they seem to stretch to infinity. Yet the two have much in common. From an article on The Economist: A new commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). These titans -- Alphabet (Google's parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft -- look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collectively racked up over $25bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital advertising in America last year. Such dominance has prompted calls for the tech giants to be broken up, as Standard Oil was in the early 20th century.
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I think you opened the wrong article, you're looking for the one four entries down.
This is just silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is just silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah.. data won't matter for shit without oil to power the machines.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Of course, ClF3 is significantly harder to get than O2 but you know.. Its possible.
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Or, you know, the sun to power the machines.
https://blog.google/topics/env... [blog.google]
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I was referring to the entire technology stack being riddled with dependencies on dead dinos and plant matter. It's not just used to generate electricity.
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Yeah.. data won't matter for shit without oil to power the machines.
Funny comment given that I see a lot of Oil companies looking beyond oil and part of the beyond oil mix is data. We hear things like: Yes if we install all these EV charging stations we lose our margins and there's no money in electricity. What we really need is a way to own the consumer (i.e. control the data stream)
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Data is all about potential, and that potential can in some cases have volatility- if there's no use for it then it goes stale and becomes essentially worthless, until suddenly someone comes up with a new algorithm or a whole application for it, when suddenly it becomes valuable, or the results from interpreting it become valuable. Cycle then repeats itself as more and more data is collected.
Sometimes real estate loses value too. I'd hate to have owned a business in a small midwest town that was dependent
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You're more or less correct.
However, I would like to suggest that Data wants to be free (easily duplicated, see Streisand Effect for example), and People want data to be secret. The ONLY valuable data is that which remains under control of dissemination.
Data itself isn't powerful, what is powerful is what it can do or what it can prevent. Think of it this way, when man learned he could control fire, that was huge, but not as huge as learning how to generate it. The data (ability to control fire) led to all
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I wouldn't discount skepticism so quickly. Skepticism is the cornerstone of the sciences which enable the technology stack required for mass information collection and processing. Without it, you would not have an information economy.
Re:This is just silly (Score:5, Funny)
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Oil is also power. Directly, it's chemical energy waiting to be tapped to physically move things. Indirectly, those who control the oil control whole countries, their own or those of others. See the Arabian peninsula.
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The real value of Oil (or anything really) is the difficulty in producing it, and rarity. While is easy to extract, and is plentiful, it will be less expensive than the harder it is to get, and how rare it becomes. Because it is used up (burned), there is a constant need for supply, and therefore, the work done with oil (cars, heating etc) is equal to, or less than the cost to generate it.
Understanding supply demand curves is still important. As demand increases, the supply drops. As supply drops, the price
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I think most people understand that. Where they usually go off the rails is considering other factors beside simple supply and demand. For starters, supply isn't just one number. There's the whole concept of supply chain. The supply of iPhones isn't limited entirely by a measurement of demand -- it could be limited by for instance a war in the Middle East jacking up the price of oil and thus the price price of the plastic for making the moulded shell. That is, the (relatively) simple supply/price chang
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Tommy-rot. The value is what you can use it for.
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Indeed. A mile-tall pile of rubbish would be a rare sight and something difficult to construct, but I don't think anyone's clamoring for it in their front lawn.
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Thanks for the recap of the first week of my high school macroeconomics class.
The part you've got wrong-way round, though, is that the value isn't in the difficulty to make it. That's the cost base. The value is in what it'll do for the purchaser. When the value is below the cost to produce, demand falls rapidly.
Are you sure? (Score:2)
Around a century ago oil replaced coal for transport due to those factors. That made the value of coal decline.
To a point, yes, but that two-dimensional way of lo
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Yeah - lemme know when I can invest in data futures.
(Not that I'd want to)
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Yeah - lemme know when I can invest in data futures.
That is what you are doing when you buy shares in Google or Facebook.
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At some point in the future, V-Ger will return to its creator, having attained knowledge of everything. At that point, we're screwed, unless we have a sexy bald officer on hand.
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measuring in dollars
Even measuring in dollars is a pretty "rough" way to compare these two. Even an apples to oranges comparison would be more apt -- at least they're both fruits, about the same size and nutritional value. Data and oil are completely different commodities. Though the market for data is booming, I think it's still a bit early to start projecting long-term trends.
Re: This is just silly (Score:2)
In other news, four blowjobs and a roasted turkey contain more BTU's than a bungee jump and an English essay...
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I *think* that is dependent on the length (and storage format I suppose) of the essay...
none the less, I fine it an entertaining comparison. /hat tip
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Great point. Besides, one could have all the data one wants about me, but if I'm either broke, or simply refuse to buy anything, what good would all that data about me do?
For the Googles, the Amazons & the Microsofts, it's that proverbial 'numbers game', where they'd find billions of people like me, but w/ a few who are more willing to buy things.
Holy Hyperbole Batman! (Score:5, Funny)
An oil refinery is an industrial cathedral, a place of power, drama and dark recesses: ornate cracking towers are its gothic pinnacles, flaring gas its stained glass, the stench of hydrocarbons its heady incense
I think a college somewhere is missing an English major.
I've been in industrial sites, physical plants, power plants. They are the opposite of a church; form follow function, and often everything to do with maintenance has to do with function, not simply with keeping things tidy, and there's nothing hallowed or sacrosanct other than the ability of the machine to function as intended.
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An oil refinery is an industrial cathedral, a place of power, drama and dark recesses: ornate cracking towers are its gothic pinnacles, flaring gas its stained glass, the stench of hydrocarbons its heady incense
I think a college somewhere is missing an English major.
Word. I mean I have an asshole too, but I'm not going to spend the entire day talking out of it.
Only in meetings with upper management!
Most Valuable Resource? (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty sure it's still printer ink.
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I'm pretty sure it's the data about how to corner the printer ink market.
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Many cities are moving to a future where a car isn't essential - good safe public transport with buses, trains and taxi services for long distances, walking for short distances.
yeah right... (Score:3)
>The World's Most Valuable Resource is No Longer Oil, But Data.
I'd like to see you drive a car based on data fuel, oh...I mean ...plastic...I mean. Data...
Bah, bullshit - when shit hits the fan, your data on my health history or the neighbors criminal history means diddley squat - only resources means something, something you can eat, use and consume. Data is whatever you think of, resources is what you need to survive.
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Knowing where and how to procure those resources is data.
Re:yeah right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oil/Food/Resources are to Data as gold is to USD fiat paper money
Interesting (Score:2)
Prove it. Disable the Lameness Filter (Score:2)
AKA Tech Bubble (Score:1)
Data just makes things better, Oil actually makes things.
It seems obvious that data is over valued and oil under valued.
Invest in ExxonMobil today!
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I want to invest in Exxon/Google but they still haven't looked at my merger suggestion.
but, what about the children? (Score:2)
Who will be our hero during data-geddon?? (Score:2)
"Data creation is exploding. With all the selfies and useless files people refuse to delete on the cloud, was created in the last two years alone. At the current rate, the world's data storage capacity will be overtaken by next spring. It will be nothing short of a catastrophe. Data shortages, data rationing, data black markets. Someone's compression will save the world from data-geddon, and it sure as hell better be Nucleus and not goddamn Pied Piper! I don't know about you people, but I don't wanna live i
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"Data creation is exploding. With all the selfies and useless files people refuse to delete on the cloud, was created in the last two years alone. At the current rate, the world's data storage capacity will be overtaken by next spring. It will be nothing short of a catastrophe. Data shortages, data rationing, data black markets. Someone's compression will save the world from data-geddon, and it sure as hell better be Nucleus and not goddamn Pied Piper! I don't know about you people, but I don't wanna live in a world where someone else makes the world a better place better than we do."
I think there must be a Mad Max parable in there somewhere... Mad Max: The data warrior?
It's kind of interesting how the Seven Sisters [wikipedia.org] seem to have parallels to FAMGA (although there are only 5 in FAMGA, 3 of the seven sisters were Standard Oil)...
Job opportunities (Score:2)
And just like oil... (Score:2)
Sure, you could argue that a site like WasteBook offers a valuable service to people who pay nothing to use it. However, the core function of the site, is to connect people
Clickbait logical fallacies (Score:2)
It's not the data as much as the services provided (Score:2)
If you're going to take companies like Amazon, Apple and Microsoft and just lump them under "sellers of data", that's a really broad description, almost to the point of being useless.
The reason these companies make revenue is because they provide complete "user experiences", making computers and other devices functional and useful. The entire smartphone business relies on Android (Alphabet/Google), iOS (Apple), or a small number of them running Windows Phone (Microsoft).
Every tablet out there? Same story, e
By 2023 (Score:2)
we are expected to reach peak data [wikipedia.org], after which data will irreversibly decline.
MOST data is ... (Score:2)
Most data is
worth its weight in bitcoins.
Obviouly not bullshit (Score:2)
Cheap clean water is and always will be (Score:3)
Cheap clean water is the most valuable resource on the planet without a doubt. It is needed and used in every industry. The oil production industry uses a significant amount of it. So does all mining and resource extraction.
In agriculture in particular obviously we are talking 1000 and 10,000 to 1 ratios for the production of food. A quarter pound of hamburger requires 110 gallons alone. Imagine the amount of energy required to clean that much water and having to include it in the price.
Incidentally forget about the drought in southern California which is a desert. We get the vast majority of our water from the mountains of northern California. There is plenty of water there even in a "drought". The problem is the farmers in California which produce a significant amount of the worlds food. They are water greedy. People watering their lawns and cars in LA is a drop in the bucket compared to farmers.
The Most Valuable Resource is Land (Score:2)
Because you have to stand somewhere.
After that it's clean air, then clean water, then clean food.
Then clothes and shelter.
And we're compromising our future ability to have all of these things.