Final Flashcards
Definition digital economy
An economy based on Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
- ICT hard/software: Apple, Samsung, Microsoft
- Online ecosystems: Google, Facebook
- Online platforms: Amazon, airbnb
- Content providers: Spotify, Netflix
- Communication: WhatsApp, Teams
Definition digital good
A networked zero marginal cost virtual object that has value for individuals or organizations
e.g.: operating systems and software, apps, “content”, video games
networked = based on ICT infrastructure
zero marginal cost = additional units are costless
Definition digital service
A networked zero marginal cost service that has value for individuals or organizations
e.g.: Intermediation, online sales communications, search, social networks, advertising, online banking and payments
Digital content & communication
Content: text, sound, images, video
Communication: voice, text, video
transition from analog to digitalised: vastly more efficient production, transmission, storage
Physical sales channels
Advantages and limitations
- retail stores, banks, real estate agencies, hair-dressers, restaurants
Advantages: personal contact, confidence, quality observed ex-ante
Limitations: local footfall, limited capacity
Online sales channels
Advantages and limitations
- Online stores, banking, intermediation platforms
Advantages: (in principle) global reach, unlimited capacity
Limitations: anonymous, high possibility of fraud, quality observed ex-post
Intermediation services
- two-sided (or multi-sided) platforms which connect users that want to trade or interact
- sale of goods: eBay, Amazon
- Transport: Uber, Lime, Glovo
- Social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn
Not new: newspapers connect readers and advertisers since 1704
digital intermediation: larger reach and targets specific individuals
Advantages digital over brick-and-mortar
- lower cost with storage and workers
- far wider reach
- much wider range of offers possible
- accelerated by covid crisis
3 steps of digitization
Digital goods and services need:
- Digitisation of data
-> transformation of analog data
-> “native” digital data - Digital transmission:
-> packet-based internet
-> fibre-based broadband, 5G mobile - Digital processing and storage
-> server farms, cloud storage
Moore’s Law
Predicted that number of components in integrated circuits would double every year
-> later revised to every two years
predictions have hold up
Digital economy ecosystem
- ICT infrastructure forms the basis
- Internet service providers (ISPs)
- Backbone operators
- equipment and device manufacturers - Providers
- operating systems and computing platforms
- apps and software, storage - Digital Marketplaces
- Intermediate between providers and users - Users
The internet value chain
- Content rights
- media right owners
- user-generated content - Online services
- Communication
- General/vertical content
- Search
- Entertainment
- Transactions - Enabling technology services
- Support technology
- Billing and payments
- Advertising - Connectivity
- Core network
- Interchange
- Retail Internet access - User interface
- Applications
- Devices
Technology and Topology of ICT have changed
Technology: how data is processed, transmitted and stored
Topology: how different elements of a system are linked up
- from vertical integration to interoperability
- from monopoly to competition
- from separate service channels to convergence
Convergence
- convergence to package-based transmission lets all simultaneously be sent through the same wireless or fibre link
Production model: commons-based
- production undertaken by loosely organised individuals who are not employees of the platform
- made possible by ICT
Production model: crowdsourcing
- special kind of peer production
- centrally organized
- for specific projects
e.g. open source software, bug bounty hunt
Returns to scale
constant, decreasing, increasing
Constant:
- more inputs increase output in exactly the same proportion
- theory benchmark for long-run decisions when all factors of production can be adjusted
Decreasing:
- more input leads to less than proportional increase in output
- usually due to fixed factors (management time, production sites)
- typical “traditional” manufacturing
Increasing:
- more inputs lead to more than proportional increase in output
- typical network industries (telecoms, electricity, water) with huge fixed costs and low variable costs
Returns to scope
- lower costs or other synergies from joint production of multiple goods
Google ecosystem:
-data flows btw. search, maps, mobile phones (Android), App Store
- improves search responses, map indications, UX
Apple ecosystem / walled garden:
- devices
- apple store, iTunes, etc.
Scale and scope: effect on pricing
to CREATE scale of scope effects:
-Penetration pricing:
-> low prices to drive high early demand
- Bundle pricing:
-> different services sold together to create scope
in PRESENCE of scale and scope effects:
- Zero pricing:
-> reflecting zero marginal cost
the bigger firms are, the more profitable low or zero prices become
Scale and scope: Effect on market structure
firms with more customers are stronger:
- necessity to fight for scale, even if short-run profits are negative
- endogenous berries to entry -> late comers unable to catch up
-> leads to winner take all markets
- persistent (quasi-) monopolies of some companies with global reach
e.g. Google, Facebook, amazon
Ways in which free offers are profitable
- teasers to gain subscribers
- freemium models
- two-sided pricing
- exchange for data and advertising
- predatory pricing
Teaser model
free viewing to see what content is there, but access only with subscription
- create trust for experience goods
- increase willingness to pay
- a digital showroom
Problem: competition with multiple competitors offering subscriptions
two-sided platforms and intermediation
platform: organised markets where sellers and buyers meet
intermediation: real estate agents, auction houses, night clubs, shopping malls
The platform:
- provides mechanism for interaction
- catalyses cross-platform externalities between parties
- derives revenues from membership or transactions
two-sided pricing
- users on side A benefit from more users on side B, vice versa
- pricing needs to weigh entry and participation incentives
- often two sides are asymmetric: one side pay very little and other side a lot
-> low prices on side that I more difficult to attract