He’s speaking from the panel, and he’s telling the story about that conversation he had with the Nigerian author who pointed out what in natural markets, relationships matter much more than transactions. He says that markets consist of relationships, conversations and transactions. And in the Western business society, transactions are always at the top of the list, with everything else being largely ignored. What the net and identity needs to do going forward is to recognize that transactions are at the tailing end of this.
Over some period of time, I’ve grown quite some respect for Doc, and his thinking has greatly influenced mine. He is one of these very unassuming guys whose folksy demeanor hides a very sharp and insightful mind that is just always a few years ahead of others. This is one of these cases that will probably become mainstream thinking in a few years.
Well, I said already that I agree: that’s why LID is centered around relationships (e.g. pointing to other people, social networks) and conversations (e.g. authenticated messaging) rather than so much about transactions ("drop identity information off and leave"). Not that one couldn’t do the latter with LID, but it’s the trailing end, not the leading end of what we want to accomplish with our products, and in partnership with our friends around OpenID and Yadis. I fully agree with Doc and his Nigerian friend. And, I suspect, the people who flock to MySpace and friends instead of signing up at e-commerce sites.