[dumb-dumb]

It's not the data, it's the delivery. If everyone could have a spot in all the major ISP's and datacenters and set up their own little racks, mirroring some interesting content for high speeed access around the world, then there's no need for many of the big companies that are currently raking in the dough (e.g. Akamai, Google, Netflix notice none of them own the data!).

When anyone can deliver the data by setting up a server proximate to the user, then it just becomes a question of what you have to offer. And then we see that none of the big players actually own any of the content they're serving. Suddenly they are not so valuable. If my neighbor and I run a crossover cable between our homes, that's about as "high speed" as we're going to get. If my neighbor has the same content as BigWebCompanyServingContentTheyDoNotOwn, then I'm going to choose to get it from my neighbor. It's faster.

In sum, it's the ownership of the delivery mechanism, the distribution channel, not the data. (That's why the media and entertainment industry are toast: as the internets gets bigger they cannot control distribution as easily. Eventually once everyone is online, they will have almost no control.) But what's funnier is BigWebCompany does not even own the distribution channel either! They just are the only ones serving up the content for you, from an ISP or datacenter at close proximity.

Instead they "control" things like email, web browsers, and server know-how.