abramson - digital phoenix; why the information economy collapsed and how it will rise again (2005)

[...]... preserve their privilege and their profits And they saw the confusion wrought among the public, now consumers, now investors, striving both to ignore the information sector and to comprehend the ways that it will alter their lives And so these priests of the information sector continued to bide their time, increase their understanding, refine their ideas, and await the day when the information sector would rise. .. and companies? What role did the government have to play and what role will it have in the future? How does any of this relate to the overall economic 2 Chapter 1 picture? What does it have to do with the apparent mismatch between job creation and productivity? And finally, how can we disentangle the threads of technology, economics, law, and public policy to understand why the information economy collapsed, ... how it will rise, and what it will look like when it does? These questions frame our inquiry and motivate our journey through the information sector The information sector is the part of the broader tech sector where people work entirely with information and products composed entirely of bit strings Though we’ve had information businesses for at least as long as we’ve had a software industry, the information. .. slink home to seek the ministrations of its creators while awaiting its ultimate and inevitable resurrection And then, slowly, with our attention focused elsewhere, the information sector began to stir, to emerge from its somnolence, and to test the waters gingerly while contemplating its return And we began, once again, to take notice 1 Net Assets The Information Sector Welcome to the information sector!... information These industries define information equipment sectors, and many of their fortunes will move in lockstep with those of the information sector But the information sector itself remains a uniquely interesting place, well worth our time and attention Prior to the mid-1990s, the information sector had been an exclusive club open only to the priests of academe and a few chosen followers When it. .. solve their own problems, and they will have no particular reason to share their solutions with others Perhaps the critical infrastructure question of the information age is how to best motivate the creation and dissemination of ideas This policy environment, along with our ever-improving physical infrastructure, will define the platform atop which our private sector entrepreneurs will innovate, teach, and. .. emerged from the temples of industrial organization (IO) economics and competition (or antitrust) law The relevance of these concepts to the Microsoft trial is obvious: Microsoft stood accused of violating the antitrust laws It helps to know why these laws exist, whom they protect and how, what the government believed that Microsoft had done wrong, and how Microsoft justified its behavior These laws’... piracy most vile Many of the accused were never sure why These tales marked the culmination of a decades-long revolution in our computing and communications infrastructure But while the Internet investment bubble and the Microsoft trial may define the current terrain of the tech sector, the Linux bazaar, the Napster song, and the responses that they engender will frame the debate about the propriety Net Assets... this journey will be elsewhere Our primary goal is to understand the relationship among digital information products, intellectual property rights, and network markets—technology, law, and economics We need to understand the infrastructure that our current system implies, to see how it has played itself out in the Microsoft trial, the Linux bazaar, and the Napster song, and to explore where it appears... our businesses, it made us more productive When it entered our homes, it created new opportunities for entertainment, education, community building, and home efficiency When it entered global society, it introduced new opportunities for communication, collaboration, and the spread of ideas; it provided citizens of many countries with new and exciting opportunities to participate in their country’s own . x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" Digital Phoenix