Why Twitter Has Changed Your Life (and will continue to do so)

I'm not here to convince you to join the Twitter nation. If you don't use it, I might think that you're an idiot, but I won't say that to your face(well, actually, I probably will). The fact is, many of the people that I have talked to who don't use Twitter have labeled it as the next trendy way to waste time and isolate yourself from the real people that surround us in our everyday lives. I agree that Twitter is completely capable of being used this way, and I admit sometimes it distracts the hell out of me (I still love it). Twitter's critics are, often, missing the point however. What Twitter, and the progress in information technology that it represents, has provided to you and me is the balance that both buyers and sellers in capitalist markets have been craving since they started thinking rationally about the kind of market in which they live. What is this balance that we have needed so desperately? Information. In a Laissez Faire economy, information is at a premium. I know, I know, you economics nerds were just inundated with ten thousand reasons (based on experience, I actually think that thats the number of disagreements that just surfaced in your minds) for why the American economy is not purely Laissez Faire, and I already know that. However, it is true that we live in one of the most open economies in the current, and probably historical, world, so lets operate in true generalizations for a moment. They fact is, government regulations and involvement aside, information is the single most valuable thing in our economy. If you don't think that, I'm sorry, you'll learn that soon enough from experience.
       So how does Twitter fit into this need for information? While Twitter does make it easy to get caught up on all the gossip surrounding Paris Hilton's latest boy toy or Drake's next cd (avoid him like the plague, for your own sake), Twitter also shines a light in all of the dark, scary corners that free markets have (be honest, all you libertarians, you know there are plenty). Twitter, and the programs and systems that will follow it, allows those who might care to access the kind of information that can make them a fully informed consumer or merchant. The easiest way to explain this is this: Scams, no matter what shape or size, depend not only on the scammers being able to keep secrets from the people they are duping, but also on the slow spread of cautionary tales about their practices. Scam artists want the spread of information(i.e. the stories of those who they scammed) to spread very slowly, thus maximizing the number of people that they can scam before the game is up and they have to catch a plane to Turkey or Bratislava. Twitter, however, fixes this problem. If you are qeued into the right channels and following the right people, the spread of this kind of informaiton is almost instantaneous (The Twitter effect has already hit Hollywood in the groin. Crappy movies now make less money than they used to, even on opening weekend, because the news of the movie's suckiness can spread much faster). What I'm not saying is "Twitter will help us catch all of the bad guys right now!". What I am saying is "Twitter, and other things like it, will begin to make scams less and less profitable, and thus less and less attractive". I don't know if Twitter will bring about the death of the scam artist completely, but I do know that it will make the "scam industry" far less profitable and attractive as information technology continues to develop. I don't care if you don't use Twitter. I do care if you aren't grateful for how it will, and has, improve your life.