Penny Wise

How the internet changed everything, and nothing

In the old days, renovating a house, we would have contacted a plumber we trusted, asked them to fit some bathroom taps, picked one of the two or three designs they offered and enjoyed the result. Under the new dispensation, I spent a lot of my own time trawling web sites, obsessively comparing the minutiae of designs and conducting my own Dutch auction to find the best 'value'. Oh foolish man, who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing

It doesn't seem that long ago - years in single digits certainly. Last week the trusted-plumber came to fix the leaky taps for the second time. After a short examination, they descended the stairs: "it's new taps time". We had a discussion about good quality taps. I bought the ones they recommended - after some time on the internet of course

So there we are. After 25 years of progress, I have advanced from installing the plumber-recommended taps first time to installing them second time, and spent a lot of time sending a lot of electrons around the globe. From an economic point of view, I have spent more money, provided more employment and contributed more to GDP. The government will be pleased I'm helping with growth - well, some of the government; the chancellor and the governor of the bank of England will be worried that I'm stoking inflation

I'm just glad, after two days of showers, that I can climb in and out of the bath to enjoy them