Information Rules¶
Shapiro, C., & Varian, H. R. (1999). Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy. Harvard Business School Press.
Cited by¶
8 citations across 8 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Critical Period
- The closing mechanism is network-effect lock-in — once a competitor accumulates enough developers, users, and complementary products, the same recruitment effort applied later produces almost nothing, because developers go where the users already are.
This sourceDevelops network effects, positive feedback, and winner-take-all lock-in: once a platform accumulates a critical installed base, network-effect lock-in closes the window and late entry becomes prohibitive — the platform-ecosystem closing mechanism.
- The closing mechanism is network-effect lock-in — once a competitor accumulates enough developers, users, and complementary products, the same recruitment effort applied later produces almost nothing, because developers go where the users already are.
- Economies of Scale
- Shapiro and Varian (1999) characterized information goods as having high fixed cost and near-zero marginal cost; once a software product is developed, the marginal cost of serving an additional user is often near zero, making the scale curve nearly hyperbolic and leading to winner-take-most dynamics, especially when combined with network effects.
This sourceCharacterizes information goods as having high first-copy (fixed) cost and essentially zero marginal cost of reproduction, so the average-cost curve declines toward a near-hyperbolic shape and (with network effects) produces winner-take-most dynamics.
- Shapiro and Varian (1999) characterized information goods as having high fixed cost and near-zero marginal cost; once a software product is developed, the marginal cost of serving an additional user is often near zero, making the scale curve nearly hyperbolic and leading to winner-take-most dynamics, especially when combined with network effects.
- Lock-In
- Shapiro and Varian (1999) treat network-effect lock-in as one of the defining features of the information economy.
This sourceFrames network-effect lock-in as a defining feature of information-economy markets; the network-value-creates-asymmetry mechanism is structurally identical to other lock-in cases but operates through user-base size rather than complementary infrastructure.
- Shapiro and Varian (1999) treat network-effect lock-in as one of the defining features of the information economy.
- Network Effect
- Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy
This sourceFrames network-effect lock-in as a defining feature of information-economy markets; the network-value-creates-asymmetry mechanism is structurally identical to other lock-in cases but operates through user-base size rather than complementary infrastructure.
- Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy
- Relationship Specific Investment
- In IT and platform ecosystems, heavy customization to one vendor's stack, deep expertise in a proprietary ecosystem, and data-format lock-in all make the investment productive inside the platform relationship and a liability outside it.
This sourceTreats switching costs, lock-in, and platform-specific investment in IT and information markets.
- In IT and platform ecosystems, heavy customization to one vendor's stack, deep expertise in a proprietary ecosystem, and data-format lock-in all make the investment productive inside the platform relationship and a liability outside it.
- Standardization
- The primacy-of-agreement invariant is vivid: USB's technical merits mattered far less than the fact that everyone adopted it — a peripheral with a USB plug works with every USB host on earth, which no technically-superior-but-unshared connector could offer.
This sourceTreats standards wars, lock-in, switching costs, and versioned evolution; canonical for the Betamax/VHS and USB-style adoption dynamics.
- The primacy-of-agreement invariant is vivid: USB's technical merits mattered far less than the fact that everyone adopted it — a peripheral with a USB plug works with every USB host on earth, which no technically-superior-but-unshared connector could offer.
- Winner Take All Market
- On technology platforms, network effects supply the convexity: each additional user makes the leading platform more valuable than the runner-up, locking in the leader across search, social networking, ride-sharing within a city, and many software categories.
This sourceEstablishes how network effects produce positive feedback and lock-in that can tip a market to a leading platform.
- On technology platforms, network effects supply the convexity: each additional user makes the leading platform more valuable than the runner-up, locking in the leader across search, social networking, ride-sharing within a city, and many software categories.
Mechanisms¶
- Segmented Version or Local Option
- It sidesteps the whole aggregation fight when coexistence is genuinely possible.
This sourceDescribes product versioning through multiple coexisting offerings designed for different user segments.
- It sidesteps the whole aggregation fight when coexistence is genuinely possible.
Verification¶
Does it exist? Not checked yet. This entry carries no identifier to resolve. It was extracted from the citation as written in the article, normalized, and deduplicated against the rest of the registry.
Does it back the claim? Not recorded. Neither this nor any other of the 8 citations of this work carries a recorded support check.
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Links previously used in the corpus¶
Before the registry existed this work was also linked 4 other ways.
- https://search.worldcat.org/title/Information-rules-%3A-a-strategic-guide-to-the-network-economy/oclc/39210116 ×1
- https://www.google.com/books/edition/Information_Rules/aE_J4Iv_PVEC ×1
- https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=9243 ×1
- https://www.worldcat.org/title/information-rules-a-strategic-guide-to-the-network-economy/oclc/39733560 ×1
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