That's Paul Krugman's claim today in the NYT. He argues that when Steve Ballmer took over, Microsoft was secure in its core business on the basis of operating system -- applications network externalities that raised switching costs for consumers. That led to Microsoft being blind to new developments, such as the smart phone, and hence …
Continue reading "Is Microsoft of the 1990s similar to Apple of today?"
I was at a conference early this week hosted by the Technology Policy Institute. One of the keynote address was by the Chair of the FTC where she talked about big data and privacy. It struck me in listing to the speech that there was insufficient attention being paid as to what might be effective …
It is the one year anniversary of the Open Internet Advisory Committee (as noted earlier). Today the committee issued a report of its work over the last year. You can access it here. Today’s post discusses the report about data Caps, which was written by the Economic Impacts working group. I am a member of …
Just a pointed to an interesting new paper by Anja Lambrecht and Kanishka Misra who examine ESPN's online paywall. Plummeting advertising revenues have lead many online content providers to experiment with additional sources of revenues. Most often, firms aim to compensate for a loss in advertising revenues by charging consumers for access to online content. …
Today was Venture Day for the Next 36. This is a program that takes 36 of Canada's finest undergraduate would-be entrepreneurs, puts them into teams, gives them starting capital and legal resources and teaches them business while they explore setting up their ventures. Today we got to take stock of where they had come in …
A new app, KeyMe, has been released for iOS. The idea is that you take a picture of your keys and then, if you lose one, you can show the picture to a locksmith and get a new key. I tried it out and it is very straightforward to use. One can imagine that if …
That appears to be a key part of the DOJ's proposed remedy for Apple in the eBook pricing case. To reset competition to the conditions that existed before the conspiracy, Apple must also for two years allow other e-book retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble to provide links from their e-book apps to their …
Continue reading "Should Apple be forced to host rival book retailers for free?"
Over at the Freakonomics blog, I have a short essay arguing that the AEA should consider providing more information about candidates for its officer elections. It may be of some interest to readers of this blog.
In a very interesting post, Geoffrey Manne makes the case that the Judge in the Apple eBooks trial got it wrong and that a successful appeal is possible. His analysis in lengthy but this hits at the central premise of his argument: While the opinion asserts that each publisher "could also expect to lose substantial …
In a provocative piece, Peter Thiel wrote: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." This framed a discussion at the NBER Summer Institute on Monday as to whether we are about to run out of ideas. (By the way, apparently only Bob Gordon thinks we are or, perhaps like Tyler Cowen, the ideas …
Digitopoly 