In the end, it is not the system considerations, but the advantages of the medium, that will sustain P2P. Moving control to the user, improving the user's ability to participate with others, and providing a sense of community and contribution will drive demand of P2P applications. Scale will rapidly commoditize, and the big winners will exploit the deeper drivers of communication and collaboration. P2P systems will further the already profound shift of transactive power toward consumers, turning them into significant market forces without the overlay of organizational structure. By enabling participation in larger social networks, well-designed P2P systems have the potential to create customer loyalty, or stickiness, that has tremendous market value. We predict that these larger forces will take time to surface - but not very much time.
Media hype is overheating expectations, however, real changes are in the water.
In the current environment, media hype is overheating expectations and many false starts are likely. Because at a deep level this is a medium shift, there are daunting issues around application construction beyond the technical issues - and the technical issues are still substantial. For a hundred years we've been equating value with scarcity. Learning, understanding, and participation are essential now - but realize that the outcomes of efforts undertaken today are highly unpredictable. Many powerful ideas never reach the market, or take a very long time to do so.