Industrial information economy

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Industrial information economy represents one in which consumers are passive, as opposed to the networked information economy in which consumers are active often to the point of equally being producers (either in terms of creativity or by allowing usage of their idle processing, storage or bandwidth).

Benkler contends that within the industrial information economy "most opportunities to make things that were valuable and important to many people were constrained by the physical capital requirements of making them" (Benkler 2006, p. 6) and thus in comparison to the networked information economy undemocratic.

Benkler points out (Benkler 2006, p. 2) that the incumbents of the industrial information economy are threatened by the networked information economy. In response to this threat he references examples of the incumbents fighting back; including the broadcast flag and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Other well known examples could have equally have been added such as telephone operator blocking of Skype (Blue Coat n.d.), the HDCP standard as well as other forms of digital rights management such as those found in Microsoft Vista (Gutmann n.d.).

Benkler warns that how the battle between the incumbents of the industrial information economy against the emerging networked information economy plays out, the life of individuals in the world's most advanced economies will be deeply affected. He states (Benkler 2006, p. 2):

How these battles turn out over the next decade or so will likely have a significant effect on how we come to know what is going on in the world we occupy, and to what extent and in what forms we will be able—as autonomous individuals, as citizens, and as participants in cultures and communities—to affect how we and others see the world as it is and as it might be.

[edit] References

Blue Coat (n.d.). Skype - Voice over IP Threat to Mobile Operators. Retrieved on 2007-05-26.

Gutmann, Peter (n.d.). A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. Retrieved on 2007-05-26.

Yochai Benkler, (2006). The Wealth of Networks : How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-11056-1.