The killer app that got the world ready for appliances was the light bulb. So the light bulb is what wired the world. And they weren't thinking about appliances when they wired the world. They were really thinking about - they weren't putting electricity into the home. They were putting lighting into the home.
Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.