What's the meaning of "commodity" in this context?

"The brilliance of Midwestern California, the California that is founded upon discontent (and the reason why so much technological innovation springs from the West Coast), is that having confronted the finitude of the coastline, technologists in Silicon Valley have shrunk the needed commodity—the future (thousands of miles of Zen pathway)—to the size of a fleck of gold dust, to a microchip. "

I think commodity as goods or stuff or ware is not implying here.
What do you think?

Question

What's the meaning of "commodity" in this context?

"The brilliance of Midwestern California, the California that is founded upon discontent (and the reason why so much technological innovation springs from the West Coast), is that having confronted the finitude of the coastline, technologists in Silicon Valley have shrunk the needed commodity—the future (thousands of miles of Zen pathway)—to the size of a fleck of gold dust, to a microchip. "

I think commodity as goods or stuff or ware is not implying here.
What do you think?

Answer

The coastline can be understood here as a finite limit to the western growth of the country, to the claiming of new land and the finding of 'pathways.'  The 'commodity' looks to be the 'future' of developing ever more pathways within 'microchips.'  A 'commodity' is something that can be bought and sold and that is exchangable within its kind (oil is oil, wherever it is from), and the writer seems to treat microchips and the future as one and the same thing--as a single interchangeable commodity.

Answer

useful items

Answer

Here, the coastline is the commodity. It's extremely valuable real estate, especially in this area of California.