Economists talk about resources. For example, they talk about the demand for a resource, the abundance or scarcity of a resource, allocating resources, the price or value of a resource.
Examples of resources: mahogany wood, oil, land.
The founding fathers of the web (e.g. Tim Berners-Lee) chose to also use the word “resource”. On the web anything that can be identified by a URL is a resource. For example, Google is a resource, identified by http://www.google.com. A resource that no longer exists is indicated by the error message, 404: Resource Not Found.
Why did Tim Berners-Lee choose to use the word resource? Did he see a parallel with resources in an economy? I think the answer is yes. Consider this: there is demand for web resources, e.g. there is a high demand for the Google resource, and there is a low demand for many other resources. Web resources have a price or value, as evidenced by the recent purchases of certain web sites. I am not sure that the web has a parallel concept of abundance or scarcity of a resource, or allocating resources. (Can you think of a parallel?)
“Resource” seems to be a fundamental idea.
Leave a Reply