The Pigs get slaughtered

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I am not an authority on the subject of markets and economics but I dare say that there is more to the market than what the ordinary eyes can see. I mean, there is certainly more to the numbers. But for its alphabetic longevity, I could have titled this piece "The new real estate paradigm and the coming wealth transfer. I choose however to go with a more poignant title.
 
My source dates back to 1987. Remember the movie Wall Street where Gordon Gekko; the erstwhile rogue trader said "The BULLS and the BEARS get paid but the PIGS get slaughtered". Interesting allegory for a real life phenomenon or how else do you explain billions of dollar value vanishing from the market in the name of recession? Where does the value go to? You may easily know who the BULLS and BEARS are but who are the PIGs? It is not a question of whether or not there is something called PIG because the equation of recession requires these three actors to occur.
 
There is an African philosophy that refers to life as a market. Well, enough of behavioural psychology of the financial market and the enigma called economy. I was surfing the internet when I came across a particular domain www.araza.com which was for sale at a whooping latest bid price of $2910. (I know places where this will buy a comfortable one plot of land). This got me thinking aloud. How come? What is the explanation for this incredulous price for a domain name? I was nearly gobsmacked to say the least.
 
It then occurred to me infact that the phenomenon of a digital real estate space competing with the physical real estate is beyond a fad. With the dot com era behind, it is astounding that the cost of a domain name will cost this much. I sense that a new era is very ripe and that era is on the heels of a maturing wave of new technologies. If there remains any naysayer or an anointed Thomas still doubting the tangibility of owning a piece of a digital real estate, let such an unbelieving mascot be prepared for the new economy. Everything you thought you knew about the real estate world is about to change.
 
A lot of people exalt the inexhaustible attribute of the digital world and for the most part this is true. Consider the billions of pages on the web. If Moore's law applies to the world of transistors, what law governs the expansion of the World Wide Web and what economic dynamics does this law create?. Technology today is highly commoditized but don't be fooled for a second that the resources will spread evenly. I predict that scarcity will encroach the digital world the same way scarcity rules in the physical world. What do you see in the future? Who knows maybe we will be trading domains? Demand and supply is as constant as the northen star.
 
If you doubt this because your name is Femi Oni, you try to create a personal address www.femioni.com. You will find it impossible because the space is already taken. It is TAKEN. The probability is that the next name you are thinking of is equally taken including the twitter handle. The question then is how truly inexhaustible is the digital world of web? I guess the future is at the speed of light. One advise for you my friend "GET IT MOVING".



Image Credit: Anonymous

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