Editing Openai/69737393-5604-8006-a65c-f09cb0d74f29 (section)

=== Assistant: Alright — let’s do this cleanly and ruthlessly, no hype, no brand worship. ===
Alright — let’s do this cleanly and ruthlessly, no hype, no brand worship.

I’ll take 10 widely celebrated “innovations” from ~1995–2025 and classify them by one criterion only:

: Did this change the underlying currency, or did it just optimize an old one?

==== 1. The Web (not “apps”, the web itself) ====

Currency shift? → YES
* Before: information scarce, local, gatekept
* After: information abundant, global, copyable

This was a real switch:
* memory externalized
* publishing democratized
* authority weakened (temporarily)

Everything else rides on this one.

==== 2. Search engines ====

Currency shift? → NO (but a powerful enzyme)
* Did not change what counts as knowledge
* Changed how fast and efficiently it’s accessed

Search optimized navigation of abundance
It didn’t redefine truth — it indexed it.

Enormously important, but not a new currency.

==== 3. Social media ====

Currency shift? → NO (regression + amplification)
* Old currency: attention, status, tribal belonging
* New situation: same currencies, algorithmically intensified

What did change:
* attention scarcity became extreme
* outrage became metabolically profitable

This is not innovation.
This is enzyme overexpression — and it’s pathological.

==== 4. Smartphones ====

Currency shift? → NO
* They absorbed: phone, camera, map, mail, wallet
* They didn’t replace the currencies behind any of them

What changed:
* temporal density
* dependency
* surveillance surface

Powerful interface convergence, not a new equilibrium.

==== 5. Cloud computing ====

Currency shift? → NO
* Old currency: computation
* New situation: same computation, centralized, rented

This is infrastructure optimization.
Important.
Not transformative in the evolutionary sense.

==== 6. Cryptocurrencies ====

Currency shift? → FAILED ATTEMPT

This one tried.

Intended new currency:
* trust without institutions

Why it failed (so far):
* couldn’t detach from speculation
* couldn’t escape existing power structures
* couldn’t stabilize meaning

A classic case of:

: “Technically clever, evolutionarily incompatible.”

==== 7. Streaming (music, video) ====

Currency shift? → NO
* Same content
* Same storytelling forms
* Same attention economy

What changed:
* distribution friction
* ownership → access
* precarity for creators

Business model mutation, not cultural metabolism.

==== 8. Artificial intelligence (current wave) ====

Currency shift? → NOT YET

This is important.

So far, AI:
* accelerates existing cognition
* scales persuasion
* optimizes production of symbols

But:
* truth is still scarce
* meaning still human-dependent
* authority still social

AI is currently an enzyme, not a new metabolite.

It might become more — but nothing is guaranteed.

==== 9. Remote work ====

Currency shift? → PARTIAL, LOCAL

This one is interesting.

What might be changing:
* presence as a proxy for productivity
* geography as destiny

But:
* power structures largely unchanged
* trust still managerial, not systemic

This is a niche adaptation, not a global switch (yet).

==== 10. “The startup ecosystem” ====

Currency shift? → NO (myth generator)

What it really does:
* converts patience into impatience
* replaces institutions with narratives
* frames extraction as inevitability

It produces novelty, not stability.
Motion, not equilibrium.

==== The scoreboard ====

Out of 10 celebrated “innovations”:
* True currency shifts: 1 (the web)
* Partial / niche shifts: 1–2
* Optimizations of old currencies: most
* Myths disguised as inevitability: several

That ratio should already tell you something.

==== The uncomfortable conclusion ====

We are not living through an age of deep innovation.

We are living through:
* recombination
* acceleration
* monetization
* extraction

Which explains the pervasive feeling you keep circling:
* lots of motion
* little progress
* increasing fragility

That’s exactly what it feels like when:

: enzymes get better, but the currency stays the same

If you want to go one level deeper next time, we can:
'' identify where a real currency shift ''could* be incubating now
* analyze why authoritarian movements falsely brand themselves as “disruptive”
* or flip the lens and ask whether slowness itself might be the next scarce resource