The contradictions of information economies have been increasing for a number of years. The development of the Internet sharpens such contradictions and, in the same time, triggers the invention of new solutions that will alleviate these contradictions and permit the incorporation of information products into the market economy. Today’s haphazard development of the Internet can be explained in part by the creativity of the “network of networks” in solving the problems which it has actually turned into pressing issues.
First of all, the Internet should be accurately defined: it is a phenomenon which is much more than the adoption of the TCP/IP protocol. It would be futile to try and foresee its evolution on the basis of the qualities or defects of IP protocol in data transfer. (2.1)
Next, there is the role played by IP networks in setting up perfect markets, so perfect that they might, over time, lead to instability and, paradoxically, thwart actual competition. (2.2) This is to be feared all the more as the Internet extends markets beyond State jurisdiction and offers a model of self-regulation of questionable effectiveness. (2.3)
Nevertheless, the Internet allows what has previously been referred to as the generation of demand and thereby solves the principal problem facing information economies: the marketing of information and the regulation, by competitive markets, of products and services whose production is subject to marked economies of scale. Its economic model is neither that of the mass media nor that of e-commerce - it is an autonomous model based on the generation and exploitation of communities of clients. (2.4)
Finally, one should mention business organization: if transaction costs are profoundly modified, firms will have to adopt a new type of coordination of their activities and develop new relationships with their employees. (2.5)
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