I would like to use metadata to minimize the amount of time spent searching for information and retrieving it. This is one aspect of the problem that metadata address. Metadata also address sharing information on the Internet, sharing it across not just a community or group of people that want to see that one set of information.
Metadata allow sharing of information with other communities.
Another aspect is that the information that people want to see on the Internet should be current. Data and information change constantly, and they are not of value if they are not current. Another problem we are trying to solve is that we want to ask a question once and receive the information from different places. People want the answer to pop up on their desktop, so this means being able to broaden the question. Metadata allow for a common interface and uniform access to distributed resources.