Massification and demassification A central theme of the industrial regime was centralization and standardization. Where the first wave lacked the technology to connect locale to locale, and to organize large systems, the second wave provided highway systems, cars, telephones, and mainframe computers, linking remote outposts to central controls. Both Alvin and Heidi Toffler worked in factories when they were young, and they knew, as all factory workers of that era knew, that the job was to turn out the longest possible line of identical products. The larger the quantity, the cheaper the run. But the economics changed.
Computers make changeovers less expensive.
A recent Siemens manufacturing product went by the name Lot Size One. To be sure, the bureaucracy and pyramid power structure of the second wave made possible many wonderful things. Consumer goods streamed through factories at an unprecedented pace. Medicines, appliances, government services, and entertainment all found their way from production centers to every nook and market niche. But the price of quality goods was sameness.