Why the Internet is like shipping containers

According to some research I did a couple of years ago, in 1956 it cost $5.83 a ton to load loose cargo onto a ship in the United States. By the middle of the noughties, it cost 16 cents.

In 1959 the old style port industry was loading and unloading 0.627 tons of freight per man hour. By 1976, thanks to containers, it was 4,234 tons per man hour.

The lowly, unlovely shipping container created a "revolution" that most of us have never thought about. It started by providing a means of distributing existing products faster and cheaper, and over time if enabled clever people to think up new products, with new business models.

The Internet is having a similar effect. It's giving people an alternative way of distributing some existing products (non-physical products) and enabling businesses to create and distribute new products and develop new business models.