Finding the Formula I'm not too sure how to create a formula to value information in its own right but something is clear. In previous times the value of information was determined by the number of people it affected and the fact that only a few of them knew it. This enabled inside traders to buy or sell shares that were going to change suddenly in value. It enabled businesses to gain access to new technology or better processes than their competitors, it enabled politicians to conceal from the electorate matters that would get them unelected. All that is unwinding.
Information can now leak through some societies faster than a whirlwind.
But the fact of the marketplace is that scarcity creates wealth, not abundance. Perhaps our information value formula should go something like this. The value of information is the inverse of the percentage of the population who know it soon enough to act on it for their own benefit. It certainly looks that way to me. What the hype surrounding the explosion in access to information has disguised is the falling value of information, not the reverse.