High speed networking has made supercomputing via single high speed computer obsolete. The scale of economy is such that multiple low speed computers are much cheaper than a single high speed computer. Distributed computing with multiple loosely coupled systems is preferred over parellel computing with tightly coupled multi-processor systems. The second impact of high-speed networking is the amount of information that flows to us. Email messages are faster and cheaper than telegrams.
Web pages provide instant access to an ocean of information.
This ease of communication has accelerated our life. Projects that used to take years can be done in a few months. This applies to product development as well. Product development cycles have shortened considerably. The standardizing processes have been accelerated to meet the fast development cycles.