> Information asymmetry rules the world around you.

True. Good point. But is information asymmetry becoming larger or smaller? I would argue that it becomes smaller, but I have nothing to prove it.

An anecdotal example out of my memory, is Kofi Annan saying in an interview, that he started to use Google, more and more instead of having to ask his assistants. Another example are journalists, able to uncover secret CIA locations with Google. Or a single whistleblower, Edward Snowden, able to leak a good part of the NSA's secret operations with just a USB stick. Sure, the NSA has more knowledge than ever. But the average Internet user, too, has unprecedented access to personal information of strangers. Just knowing your real name will likely allow me to find your location, employment, a picture of you and much more. So has the information asymmetry between us and the NSA grown or shrunk?

> But is information asymmetry becoming larger or smaller?

I think the asymmetry is becoming larger. Certainly in absolute terms we all have more information about one another than we did before, but the problem now is not having the information, it's searching through it to find the relevant information. Or being able to act on the information.

What can you as an ordinary individual do with a publicly available list of corrupt government officials? What can a corrupt president or FBI director do with a publicly available list of political opponents?

That favors the people, who will always have way more manpower to search and process the data than the elites who try to hide it. The more information in the public realm, the more that scores of interested scholars, journalists, statisticians, lawyers and other such professionals can use the tools of their trade to come to useful conclusions. Of course, most people could do nothing with such information, but released into the wild, even minor outrage can cause real change.