The More Capital, The More Expensive the Information
The same piece of information—say, something that can boost returns by 10 percent—costs only 10 dollars if society’s total wealth is 100 dollars, but 1,000 dollars if society’s total wealth is 10,000 dollars.
The information itself hasn’t changed; it’s the same information. But the richer society gets, the more expensive that information becomes.
For the poorer society, the price of that information will never exceed 10 dollars, whereas for the richer one, it will approach 1,000 dollars.
If he charges 1,000 dollars an hour and 2,000 people each contribute two hours of their time, I only need to pay 1,000 dollars. But in a one-on-one setting, I’d have to pay 2 million dollars. That kind of price would shut out the vast majority of people, so in reality, who do you think offers one-on-one conversations with you?