I get the feeling that tsunamifury is suggesting that chat, rather than a document browser, ought to be the metaphor for the end-user Internet -- that's what "vast majority of the planet stores knowledge in people and references it via direct communications" seems to be alluding to.
Chat interfaces are certainly all the rage right now. Having a properly threaded log of your interactions with a service provider is one benefit of messaging vs. browsing; lack of exploitable UI space for distracting advertising and pointless branding is another. At the same time, the UI paradigm for chat apps isn't even yet up to '70s state of the art. It's only good for very short interactions with limited or obvious choices.
Chat interfaces are certainly all the rage right now. Having a properly threaded log of your interactions with a service provider is one benefit of messaging vs. browsing; lack of exploitable UI space for distracting advertising and pointless branding is another. At the same time, the UI paradigm for chat apps isn't even yet up to '70s state of the art. It's only good for very short interactions with limited or obvious choices.