From a privacyandtechnology blog post:
"Cisco estimates that some 25 billion devices will be connected in the IoT by 2015, and 50 billion by 2020. Analyst firm IDC makes an even bolder prediction: 212 billion connected devices by 2020. This massive increase in connectedness will drive a wave of innovation and could generate up to $19 trillion in savings over the next decade, according to Cisco’s estimates. But the ingenuity and innovation which companies will apply to turn the IoT into practical reality is constrained by law and regulation. Existing issues may take on new dimensions and, as technologies combine, so will the legal consequences of those technologies. In this article, we look at the prospects for the IoT as well as the likely legal and regulatory factors that will affect the development and growth of IoT technology and the markets that such technology will create."
Think of the “network effect” first bandied about when Fax machines were the rage in the US (putting lots of messenger bikes to pasture). Here will be born a whole new “ecology” of startups. Hello Kickstarter and other angel platforms. Plenty of things for cash rich Internet 2.0 and 3.0 leaders to put in their shopping carts. (random: Fax machines are still used heavily in Japan to do all kinds of communication, including food order deliveries).
But NOW consider the regulatory costs of this patchwork quilt of "things", each falling under different regulatory regimes and constraints.