The PC was a big invention and a great product. It brought information technology to the masses. It transformed the economy into a knowledge based one.

But it never (or at least not yet) reached outside the already wealthy part of the world. It wasn’t truly global.

The mobile phone, on the other hand, is. We’re approaching 3 billion phones worldwide and counting. And while the PC certainly improved life for those who could afford it, that pales in comparison to how the mobile phone is changing everyday life for people in the poorer parts of the world. Going from starving to fed is much better than going from a 1 car household to one that affords 2 cars.

The Economist has an excellent article on the subject explaining how a small scale market for fish has been transformed by the added information brought on by mobile phones:

Furthermore, says Mr Jensen, phones do this without the need for government intervention. Mobile-phone networks are built by private companies, not governments or charities, and are economically self-sustaining. Mobile operators build and run them because they make a profit doing so, and fishermen, carpenters and porters are willing to pay for the service because it increases their profits.

As the old saying goes: give a man a fish and you’ve fed him for a day. Give a man a mobile phone and he can sell that fish for a profit, build a fishing business and go mobile 2.0 before the end of fishing season.

Welfare through profit and better working markets. That’s how the west improved life and that’s how the rest of the world is doing it, thanks to that magical little information injection that the mobile phone provides.

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