This is a good point. Real estate is is limited and valuable
in the real world because we all have to travel. In the hyperspace of
Cyberspace, there is no such requirement and thus "land" cannot be
intrinsically valuable.
A 3d cyberspace will probably be accessed and used quite similar to the www
today, jumping in time and space effortlessly. But as Kevin points out,
there be localities where distance in space is made to be an important
parameter, e.g. in the inevitable 3d MUDs/MOOs.
And this of course points out that all attempts to create "valuable
real estate" are artificial. You can only be slowed down by some
computer program running somewhere. Thus the consumer has to "agree"
to be slowed down.
This situation is not going to change unless new distributed
databasing technologies are developed. The problem nowadays is that
you get 10 "flat" web pages on some subject, all of which share 90% of
the same data, and each one has an extra 10% that's different from
what everyone else has. So you're obliged to go through all of them.
A sophisticated databasing system would coalesce these pages for you,
so that you get 100% of what you want on one "virtual" web page.
If that technology ever comes about, then people will access
Cyberspace in terms of _descriptions_, and not in terms of _space_.
"Awesome descriptions" will be precious, not "virtual real estate."
This has many consequences for how Cyberspace will be structured.
Cheers,
Brandon