Information Rules

Preface

Luck led us to write this book.

Each of us became economists because we wanted to apply our analytical training to better understand how society functions. By our good fortune, the economics of information, technological change, game theory, and competitive strategy were emerging fields of inquiry when we started our professional careers. We jumped in and offered our own contributions in these areas. Never did we imagine that, twenty years later, we would find ourselves in the middle of an information revolution. What started as an academic exercise, centered on research and publishing, has evolved into speeches, consulting work, expert testimony, government service, and even a deanship.

As we strayed from academia, we often heard ...