[superice]

Yeah, there is: speed. I work on software for inland cargo shipping, and the major factor there is speed and inflexibility of destinations. Trains, at least for cargo, are easily faster by a factor of two, if not faster. Going from the port of Rotterdam to Groningen (north of NL) takes about 24 hours by barge, but will take only around 8 hours by cargo train. By passenger train similar distances will take around 4 to 5 hours.

Usually this is not too big of an issue when transporting cheap bulk goods, but especially food and other perishables (flowers!) are difficult when it comes to transportation over water.

It's quite curious how the Europe is the only place with real inland shipping networks over water, other regions do not even come close in terms of amount of cargo transported, even though the natural resources are often there. The rest of the world pretty much relies on trains and trucks to transport cargo. There is quite some room for disruption here, but it's a hard an capital intensive market to break into.

EDIT: To come back to your point about people, they often value time quite highly. Not very many people take a ship to travel the world anymore, even though there is a lot of the earth reachable by the sea. Natural resources is only one part of the equation, and usually the trade-off is between time and money.

[pintxo]

Actually most other continents have far less rivers which lend themselves to easy shipping. Also development in Europe was ahead of the curve in the last couple hundred years (and before we did not have the technology for locks and easy travel upriver). Now that everyone has catched up (or is in the process) there are fare quicker/easier/cheaper/flexible options like trains, trucks, planes available. So the pressure to build good waterways is way less.

[dcustodio]

Indeed. You couldn't offer the same level of services that a cruise ship does because of height restrictions and it's too slow for fast-paced youngsters. Price-wise it's hard to compete with interrail so I guess it would be a very niche thing. Which leads me to wonder if there is anyone hitchhiking barges.