Likewise, with a database, you are putting information into pigeonholes. Five years ago, there was no Web. Any set of information that we categorized back then would be much less useful to us today. And five years from now in the future, the world will have changed again. There are many ways in which if you don't have to categorize information you can have better access to it.
Today there are thousands of Web sites devoted to jobs.
Every one of those sites uses a database. They are just putting in resumes and job descriptions. That's information that would work beautifully in an AltaVista environment. But because they use databases, that information is not indexed at AltaVista. So if I went to the trouble of entering my resume at 200 different job-related Web sites, a headhunter going to AltaVista and looking to hire someone with credentials just like mine will never find me, won't even know that I exist.