On the surface, centralized control makes all the sense in the universe. Unfortunately, the universe has an infinite amount of sense and an infinite amount of nonsense.
A world with centralized control is theoretically better prepared and more efficient, but managing a world with infinite variables is impossible.
Still we try to control as much as we think we can. There are some domains that we recognize as out of control, but with information we really do try to control it. We want systems to capture, manage, process and retrieve information. Truth be told, we want the right information to guide our decisions and in many cases, we don’t necessarily want others, especially our competitors to have access to this information that we feel is advantageous.
We have all kinds of unconscious information behaviors. What we take in, what we remember, what we share. Humans are constantly processing information and probably some information behaviors are through evolutionary biology. Teaching our children, learning to collaborate, starting to keep records all seem to encourage survival and reproduction.
There are clearly good reasons to manage information, but it is impossible to manage it all. While having more information provides more confidence, it doesn’t necessarily lead to better outcomes. You need to have the right information at the right time to have any kind of advantage, and you can’t predict what information that you will need.
Humans may anticipate needing some of the that they will need, but you can’t know everything in advance.
Information systems try to provide this illusion of control of information, but there is still way more information and factors that are outside the boundaries of every information system ever developed.