Say you’ve sprained your ankle. You consult Google, where you find copious information about using compression bandages to stabilize your sprain. But you’d like some back and forth with someone who has experience. You post about your injury on Facebook, triggering a real-time conversation with volunteer first responders offering pro tips.
You then pop over to Amazon, because the nearest drug store is more than 16 miles away and you don’t want to drive with a sprained right ankle. You’ve got too much debt riding on your credit card to add to it blithely, but no problem—you use PayPal to get a bandage delivered to you that same day. And if your sprain leads to hard-to-handle bills, you can put out a call for help using GoFundMe.
A totally banal incident, and unimaginable at every step just two decades ago. Our abilities to learn, discuss, buy, receive, and give have changed magnificently for the better because of the behemoth internet companies on which every step of that dull anecdote hinges, writes Brian Doherty in his review of The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball by Noam Cohen.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2tU4IaY
via IFTTT