As someone who took (and really benefited from) Srinivasan's MOOC course, I definitely enjoy his written style. I like the links-as-evidence, and I think he does a great job of weaving a narrative out of seemingly disconnected parts.
That being said, I think he goes a little too far here. It seems like there's a fundamental disconnect between his two most important contentions, namely that:
"The future of technology is not really location-based apps; it is about making location completely unimportant."
"We are rapidly approaching a future characterized by a totally new phenomenon, the reverse diaspora: one that starts out internationally distributed, finds each other online, and ends up physically concentrated."
If location is increasingly unimportant, why would the natural next step be for people to coalesce geographically? Why do people that share common interests online necessarily need to live close together?
That being said, I think he goes a little too far here. It seems like there's a fundamental disconnect between his two most important contentions, namely that:
"The future of technology is not really location-based apps; it is about making location completely unimportant."
"We are rapidly approaching a future characterized by a totally new phenomenon, the reverse diaspora: one that starts out internationally distributed, finds each other online, and ends up physically concentrated."
If location is increasingly unimportant, why would the natural next step be for people to coalesce geographically? Why do people that share common interests online necessarily need to live close together?