Information Rules

7	Networks and Positive Feedback

The industrial economy was populated with oligopolies: industries in which a few large firms dominated their markets. This was a comfortable world, in which market shares rose and fell only gradually. This stability in the marketplace was mirrored by lifetime employment of managers. In the United States, the automobile industry, the steel industry, the aluminum industry, the petroleum industry, various chemicals markets, and many others followed this pattern through much of the twentieth century.

In contrast, the information economy is populated by temporary monopolies. Hardware and software firms vie for dominance, knowing that today’s leading technology or architecture will, more likely than not, be toppled ...