Information Goods

Information Goods

An information good is anything that can be digitized (Shapiro and Varian(1999), p3¹). Movies, music, books, this web site - all are information goods.

The internet has had a dramatic effect on the economics of information goods. One effect has been the reduction of distribution cost to near zero. The internet is destroying the business model of newspapers.

Encyclopedia Britannica example.

• Why do we have spam?

Footnotes

1. Shapiro, Carl and Varian, Hal. R. 1999. Information Rules: a strategic guide to the network economy. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.