Nobody planned this

Preparing for a recent trip, I downloaded For All Mankind season five — ten episodes of high-resolution video. It took about 20 minutes.

To get that much video 30 years ago, I’d have to schlep to Blockbuster, hope they had the tapes in stock, and pay around $40 in today’s money. Then watch them on a low-res TV before returning them two days later.

Downloading from the internet certainly wasn’t an option. In the late 90s, a single MP3 — three minutes of music — took an hour to download on a good day.

Today, though, my home internet connection runs roughly 10,000x faster than the dial-up of 30 years ago, for about 3x the nominal cost.

No one person or organization planned this improvement. It came about because millions of people — customers, engineers, broadband companies — each pursued their own goals.

That’s what progress looks like when it’s working. There’s no grand announcement. Just millions of people acting on their independent plans — until one day you’re downloading a season of television in the time it takes to pack your suitcase.