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Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy
- 01
Selling Information When Copies Cost Almost Nothing
0:0014:19 left
About the book
Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy is a book by Carl Shapiro; Hal R. Varian, published in 1998. This Waffle podcast explores the book across 4 episodes.
How can information businesses recover their investment through pricing, product versions, and sharing rights when copying is cheap and customers value the same product differently? How do switching costs create value for suppliers, and how can buyers preserve bargaining power throughout the lock-in cycle? How do compatibility, openness, and alliances help a technology reach critical mass—and what keeps a successful standard from fragmenting? What do the 56k modem and browser wars reveal about winning adoption—and when do alliances, giveaways, and distribution deals undermine rather than strengthen competition?
These episodes are AI-generated adaptations grounded in the book. Listen to the first episode here and continue the series in the Waffle app.
About the author
Carl Shapiro
Carl Shapiro is an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, whose work focuses on competition and markets. He coauthored Information Rules with Hal R. Varian, applying economic principles to information and technology businesses.
