The New Oil

In the picture above, Economist magazine which happens to be one of the biggest media outfits in US stated clearly that Data is bigger than oil,  but how true could that really be ?

First and foremost, zoom in on that picture, what you will see are some of the most valuable companies in the world. Companies  like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon etc. These companies are richer than all of the biggest economies in Africa. Let me give you some figures :

Facebook is worth over $438 billion dollars!!! and as developed as South Africa is, that country's GDP, as rebased recently, was just $358 billion. Nigeria as at the 2015 had a GDP of *$458 billion (please don't remind of what it is now..sobbing), just a paltry $10 billion more than a 30 years old online business boy. Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt are the three biggest economies in Africa and one man's business, Bill Gates of Microsoft, is richer than those 3 nations collectively!

Infact don’t be surprised if they decide to buy your country someday.....(just kidding).

These companies pride on the massive user base and customers that patronize them. Recently, Mark zuckerberg declared that Facebook had hit 2 billion users and of course that includes You and I.

Over 3.5 billion people actively use the internet daily. These humongous internet users surf the internet  to chat and socialize with friends, others utilize  the internet  as a market place where they buy and sell goods and items.

1gb of data in most countries is above 1 dollar. In Nigeria for example, 1gb of data is #1000 (one thousand naira). But let’s even assume that these internet users spend 1gb of data every month, that amounts to 3.5 billion  x $1 = 3.5 billion dollars of free money to be shared between Google Facebook , Amazon and all those popular sites. By the time you add airtime purchase of people to the list, you will discover that so much money is readily available to be shared, much more money than oil can ever generate.

What more can I say? You choose; oil or data.. Like, right now, as you are reading this post, which is of more importance to you? How about when you do your online shopping, fill that form online, transact that business, like that post, update your status, upload that image or video, etc on Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter, etc? How about when you pay that bill, do that research, catch up with friends in the hinterlands or far away metropolitan suburbs on whatsapp, Facebook (chat), Snapchat, etc. Which has imparted your life more in the recent past (and will continue to)? Indeed we cannot begin to quantify the value of data to our entire existence these days and it's gonna be so for a long time.