The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

by Kevin Kelly

We are different from our animal ancestors in that we are not content to merely survive, but have been incredibly busy making up new itches that we have to scratch, creating new desires we’ve never had before. This discontent is the trigger for our ingenuity and growth.

The nutrition of participation nudges ordinary folks to invest huge hunks of energy and time into making free encyclopedias, creating free public tutorials for changing a flat tire, or cataloging the votes in the Senate. More and more of the web runs in this mode. One study a few years ago found that only 40 percent of the web is commercially manufactured. The rest is fueled by duty or passion.

Right now, today, in 2016 is the best time to start up. There has never been a better day in the whole history of the world to invent something. There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers, higher benefit/risk ratios, better returns, greater upside than now. Right now, this minute. This is the moment that folks in the future will look back at and say, “Oh, to have been alive and well back then!” The last 30 years has created a marvelous starting point, a solid platform to build truly great things. But what’s coming will be different, beyond, and other. The things we will make will be constantly, relentlessly becoming something else. And the coolest stuff of all has not been invented yet. Today truly is a wide-open frontier. We are all becoming. It is the best time ever in human history to begin. You are not late.

Simultaneity trumps quality.

Now organizations need to save their customers and citizens time. They need to do their utmost to interact in real time. Real time is human time.

these uncopyable values are things that are “better than free.” Free is good, but these are better since you’ll pay for them.

Many people go to movie theaters to see films on the opening night, where they will pay a hefty price to see a film that later will be available for free, or almost free, via rental or download. In a very real sense, they are not paying for the movie (which is otherwise “free”); they are paying for the immediacy.

“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.

Netflix, the world’s largest video hub, allows me to watch a movie without owning it. Spotify, the largest music streaming company, lets me listen to whatever music I want without owning any of it. Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited enables me to read any book in its 800,000-volume library without owning books, and PlayStation Now lets me play games without purchasing them. Every year I own less of what I use. Possession is not as important as it once was. Accessing is more important than ever.

Accessing rather than owning keeps me agile and fresh, ready for whatever is next.

The dream of many companies is to graduate from making products to creating a platform. But when they do succeed (like Facebook), they are often not ready for the required transformation in their role; they have to act more like governments than companies in keeping opportunities “flat” and equitable, and hierarchy to a minimum.

The only things that are increasing in cost while everything else heads to zero are human experiences—which cannot be copied. Everything else becomes commoditized and filterable. The value of experience is rising. Luxury entertainment is increasing 6.5 percent annually. Spending at restaurants and bars increased 9 percent in 2015 alone. The price of the average concert ticket has increased by nearly 400 percent from 1981 to 2012. Ditto for the price of health care in the United States. It rose 400 percent from 1982 to 2014. The average U.S. rate for babysitting is $15 per hour, twice the minimum wage. In big U.S. cities it is not unusual for parents to spend $100 for child care during an evening out. Personal coaches dispensing intensely personal attention for a very bodily experience are among the fastest growing occupations. In hospice care, the cost of drugs and treatments is in decline, but the cost of home visits—experiential—is rising. The cost of weddings has no limit. These are not commodities. They are experiences. We give them our precious, scarce, fully unalloyed attention. To the creators of these experiences, our attention is worth a lot. Not coincidentally, humans excel at creating and consuming experiences. This is no place for robots. If you want a glimpse of what we humans do when the robots take our current jobs, look at experiences. That’s where we’ll spend our money (because they won’t be free) and that’s where we’ll make our money. We’ll use technology...

A Wikipedia is impossible, but here it is. It is one of those things that is impossible in theory but possible in practice.