I had the opportunity to inspect a 200 year old barn today with a timber frame expert. For 98% of the world, the barn was a tear down - meaning no one in their right mind would try to save it. Most of the siding was gone and one of the corner posts and supporting structures had been ripped away. There were holes in the floor and decaying wood everywhere. My expert guide fell in love with the structure. He pointed out that most of the important parts of the building were in great shape and declared it a building worthy of salvage.
All of the beams were hand hewn out of white oak, a highly rot resistant and strong North American hardwood. As we walked through and around the building, he noted that many of the beams would have taken 30 to 40 man hours to prepare. With probably 50 to 75 beams in the barn, it became quickly obvious how much human effort went into felling trees and preparing the wood for structure that would ultimately become a barn.
Somewhere along the way, the barn ceased to be valuable to the landowners and was left to fall into disrepair. It is slated for demolition in the next few weeks unless an organization that I am affiliated with takes steps to save it.
Time marches on and despite the incredible investment of human capital in this barn, unless we come up with another suitable use for the structure, it will become part of a landfill. Reminds me of many businesses today and even more to come tomorrow as the information age gains speeds and makes many businesses and professions, which relied on scarcity of information to make them valuable, obsolete in the face of the frictionless flow of information.
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