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The internet isn’t just a network, but a network of networks. Thanks to an array of shared protocols, what would be a jumble of incompatible systems can work together. Whatever its source or destination, information is processed and transmitted in a consistent way that all parts of the internet can understand and facilitate.
What’s less appreciated is that the world’s transport networks have undergone a similar revolution. Thanks to common standards, they’ve become increasingly inter-operable, boosting global trade. The containerisation of shipping and freight has proved especially important – something that Ruth Davidson wrote about in her UnHerd launch essay:
“Before containerisation, loading cargo cost $5.86 per ton and only 1.3 tons could be loaded per hour. Today, cargo can be loaded at a rate of 10,000 tons per hour and at a cost of just $0.16 per ton.
“90% of all purchased goods are now shipped inside a container and 90% of the world’s nations have at least one container port.”
Obviously the parallels between the internet and transport aren’t exact. The internet is pretty much instantaneous, but can only move information, while neither of those things is true of the global transportation system. However, in other ways, the similarities between the two global networks are growing – indeed, they are gradually merging into one another.
For instance, containerisation didn’t just streamline shipping in a physical sense, it also did it electronically, establishing globally-shared systems for recording and tracking goods as they travel around the planet. The growing automation of both the physical and informational components means that within decades the global transport network will become a robotic extension of the internet, able to see and move physical objects as precisely as the internet currently does with bits of data. Our transport networks and the internet will become one.
Who is best-placed to dominate this emerging super-network?
I’d look to those companies whose operations and expertise already cut across the still distinct spheres of electronic communication and physical transport. One company in particular comes to mind: Amazon.
Writing for Bloomberg, Shira Ovide urges us to keep an eye on the most expansive of the tech giants:
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