Eastman Kodak, one of America’s most innovative corporations in bygone times, shrinks away in bankruptcy court as two Instagram founders pocket hundreds of millions each for mimicking Kodak’s photo processing looks.

All those newspapers and magazines, big space users, continue to lose their grips on shrinking markets in the wake of internet and I-phone competition. Instagram has a bigger capitalization than the New York Times Company.

A neighbor who is a law partner at a high profile firm worries about how long it will survive in the new world order of fewer deals and squeezed fees. Have you noticed how attorneys continue to reduce their space needs? Yeah I know you have.

And the big banks and other financial companies shave more jobs… and will be using less space.

No problem though… if you’re a broker Instagram may not be the answer, but what about its purchaser Facebook, the next big IPO prospect. Well even with the addition of Instagram’s now mega rich 13, Facebook only has somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 employees. And then there’s the market favorite Google. Google actually has 30,000 plus on staff worldwide in 70 offices or about three times as many folks as Sony laid off last week. I’m sure the Googlians operate in some inspiring open space arrangements with hoteling options that limit the company’s space per capita needs, but 30,000 beats 2,013.

Still, Google’s employee count is rather modest compared to the employee rosters of nation’s three biggest banking institutions, which as mentioned are all in recent and continuing cost cutting mode. Citibank, Bank of America, and JP Morgan each have approximately 200,000 employees, most of whom occupy some form of commercial space. And if we are looking at technology—old school IBM has about 400,000 employees worldwide. In contrast, Apple has only about 46,000 full time staffers (the company’s stock price may be out of sight, but it’s not necessarily an employer/office space user juggernaut), and as Steve Jobs proudly pointed out the company does most of its manufacturing overseas, using less expensive subcontractors. Do we really think any of the current high flyers will expand their work forces exponentially and fill up office buildings here in the U.S.A?

I know we’re pinning all our hopes on small businesses and creative start-ups for spurring new economic demand, but if we look at Google, Facebook and next-wave Instagrams, the future success stories cannot be expected to ramp up office space use. These information intermediaries literally operate in the clouds and help eliminate the need for more commercial space. They provide portals and avenues of information, they help speed up contacts, they allow us to share data, and they let advertisers pinpoint potential customers. But none of these companies has or will require a ton of employees to fill up vacancies in our office markets. Do any of them need regional or branch offices in every town? Do any of them really need mega downtown office headquarters? No and no.

And then the Facebook purchase raises another concerning question. Are these information intermediaries just the latest bubble? How many apps do we really need and how much advertising can Google command when the underpinnings of the old economy on which so many people still depend are being undone by all this technology innovation? AOL, the media wunderkind of only a decade ago, sells its patents to stay afloat, while Yahoo already appears to be pushed aside. I guess we call this creative destruction.

If you’re a leasing broker or a commercial real estate owner, you might be concerned.