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Knol

The tools created by people, including computers and their networks, are subject to their own evaluation processes, but of a type that appears more subjective than the natural selection that we’ve discussed relative to individual and multi-level appraisal of living organisms. The success or failure of computers is directly influenced by their efficacy for a specific purpose or collection of purposes as judged by the human users of these systems. However, this efficacy is certainly not the only parameter used in the judgment. Or, perhaps we should say that “Efficacy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” The rules against which goods or services are judged are fluid and extremely context sensitive. For example, a highly portable, ubiquitous audio and visual telecommunication device seemed like an excellent idea in the 1930’s when it was introduced in the Dick Tracy cartoon strip as a wristwatch TV. In those days, the technology to realize such a device was but a pipe dream at best. In fact, basic television technology was first introduced in a public market capacity during the 1934 World’s Fair in Chicago. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, a fixed line variant of a personal video transmit and receive device seemed like a close approximation when the videophone was introduced by Ma Bell. At that time, the market gave it a “Thumbs down!”

At the dawn of the XXI^st Century, when ubiquitous cellular telephony connectivity, digital photography and an incredibly mobile population has fomented a new market, the concept comes alive almost naturally as coexisting capabilities converge to provide new functions, such as image transmission, which could establish themselves in an evolutionary manner in the global telecommunication network. Observe a major news event, particularly one presenting a dramatic visual image and what do you see? You see a lot of observers, people who just happen to be in the area, holding up their cellular phones to capture still or video images of the event. In the current environment, not only does everyone have their 15 minutes of fame, as suggested by Andy Warhol, but everyone has a similar shot at distributing the images of a major newsworthy event; perhaps providing someone else with their 15 minutes of fame.

So, what is this decision-making mechanism that we term a market? We view it as a special characteristic of a social ecosystem, which we’ll consider in some detail in the next chapter. We can get a bit ahead of ourselves, and using language that we’ll more fully develop in the next chapter, suggest that markets assess the value derived from the sating of appetites. At the moment, this description sounds a bit like the policy arbiters of religions, who we might paraphrase as saying in effect that markets work in mysterious ways. Nonetheless, let’s proceed by considering that a major goal of a market is actually a simplification of the interaction process. In the abstract, the function of a market is to provide for the competition among congruent products and services such that only cost or price versus performance is the determining factor by which one or the other product or service wins or loses. In this guise, cost or price functions in a similar capacity to trust as we consider it within more general policy infrastructures. If a computer system is accepted by a particular market, that is, if it is judged to be good within that market, then it succeeds. If a computer system is not accepted within a market, then the system fails and, over time, it will cease to exist within that market. If a market functioned in a “pure” fashion, then computer systems would be judged solely on price versus performance. Markets are, however, social environments for the exchange of goods and services and as such they are subject to the same subjective evaluations as are other aspects of social systems.

The concept of a market likely grew out of the increased relevance of groups beyond the basic nuclear family. In the distant past, but just as relevant as if it happened just last week, when a family group found food, it was distributed to the members of the group according to the group’s organizational structure. This distribution was, and is, a significant factor in the efficacy of one group versus another. As groups became larger and more diverse, extending across larger areas,

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