The Internet as it is, rather than as we might wish it to be, is above all else an elaboration of the structure of computer software, or, more precisely, software as humans have been able to create it. And software as we know it is a brittle substance. It breaks before it bends. It is the only informational structure in human experience thus far that has this quality...
Brittleness leads to the phenomenon of "Lock-in," which means that software is harder to change once it has been enhanced by subsequent developments than other human artifacts. Once software becomes part of the context or foundation for newer software in a network of dependencies, the older stuff becomes much more expensive to change than the newer stuff. There are severe, even existential, consequences of this quality of software.
One consequence is that situational advantage in the business side of software is overwhelmingly driven by snowballing early adoption, with Microsoft perhaps being the most celebrated example.
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/01/09/jaron-lanier/the-gory-antigora/
