This is sort of like the disappearance of the "jet set" as air travel became a commodity. People no longer dressed up to go on a flight, jobs involving flying all over were no longer so glamorous, and socializing on a plane or in an airport wasn't as fascinating.
But the huge benefit is what happens when so many have access to the power only a few had before.
So now that "everyone" is a geek, being a geek is not that distinctive anymore. But as the technology is a lot closer to people's lives, the impact of the alpha geek has become much larger.
If just having a cell phone counts then we're there at least for the majority of the population, apparently we now have 5 billion cell phone subscriptions.
Thats pretty useless - you have to remove the couple of billions of people from the pool who are too poor to feed themself, stuck in refugee camps or otherwise unable to live their life. It sounds heartless, but they don't really matter in any sense since they have to live life by the rules others make.
This is sort of like the disappearance of the "jet set" as air travel became a commodity. People no longer dressed up to go on a flight, jobs involving flying all over were no longer so glamorous, and socializing on a plane or in an airport wasn't as fascinating.
But the huge benefit is what happens when so many have access to the power only a few had before.
So now that "everyone" is a geek, being a geek is not that distinctive anymore. But as the technology is a lot closer to people's lives, the impact of the alpha geek has become much larger.