Now in the third age, we’ve moved from daily mode to real time. If we message someone, we expect them to reply instantly. If we spend money, we expect the balance in our account to adjust in real time. Why should medical diagnostics take days to return results instead of immediately? If we take a quiz in class, why shouldn’t the score be instant? For news, we demand to know what is happening this very second, not an hour ago. Unless it occurs in real time, it does not exist. The corollary—and this is important—is that in order to operate in real time, everything has to flow.
