The transfer of power in a sense created a divide in government as capitalism and communism ended. Individuals were now finally liberated socially as well as economically. This change to bottom-up economics changed the global spectrum as free-market economies lead the way to an increase in innovation and business. The imbalanced distribution of wealth in the free market created more division in terms of globalization; nevertheless, the economic mainstream still prospered.
The next global flattener that Friedman spoke about was the Internet. In the early 1990's, the creation of Netscape made the world almost instantaneously interconnected. This new way of sharing and gathering new information with only a few clicks on a mouse became a cheap worldwide trend. Netscape was the first instrument to put together "both connectivity and commerce" according to Friedman (Friedman, 61). Its user friendly interface ignited connections across the globe, the colloquial playing field becoming even more intricate than it was before. These new found capacities to generate, amass, and seek out information made it much easier for regular people to amass knowledge during these first few years of the Internet. This new era of global communication was one that Friedman saw as progress towards intercultural communication and understanding. Work flow software is what Friedman determined as the third major world flattener. Work flow software is what gives machines the ability to communicate without human interaction. This became another way for people to collaborate all over the globe. While Friedman observed Scott Hyten, the CEO of Wild Brain and creator of Higglytown Heroes, he was astonished at how important work flow software was. To him this seemed like a "quiet revolution" (Friedman, 78). Friedman was able to observe how numerous businesses could collaborate with each other completely as they quickly shared information faster than ever.
