Before the internet things were
- Analogue — information was buried in substrate and could only audio-to-digital converter was the human brain. Thus meetings and physical presence were a really important method of exchange - hence the importance of centralised locations for for merchants to gather.
- Physically constrained — there was a physical cost to generating copying, adjusting, moving information, and any action lead to loss of fidelity.
- Finite — the commons was a tragedy. There were infinite demand for finite resources, and generating information burned resources.
- Disconnected - except where we were physically present, we were disconnected from each other and and reliant on expensive analogue communication. Any communication was effectively metered.
- Intermediated — physical networks were expensive capital projects and therefore centralised and users depended on intermediaries with access to or ownership of the network. Intellectual property was similarly concentrated with intermediaries.