Scaling for the Masses

ReadWriteWeb summarises an interesting new service based on utility computing:

In the next decade, only the largest enterprises will be able to justify owning and operating their own servers.

This is further evidence of what I've been saying for a while - that regardless of the long tail of niche markets that technology has made accessible, the latest trends are signs of an increasing homogenization of the infrastructure that enables these markets to emerge.

In the future specialist companies like 3Tera, along with the big Internet companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, will operate ‘server farms’ that become too cost efficient for other companies not to utilize.

If this prediction is correct, we’re watching the distributed ownership and control of the internet evaporate, depositing the remnants in the hands of a small number of large companies. Web 2.0 - meet Monopolistic Capitalism 1.0.