March 16, 2011

transaction economics v. attention economics

Kevin Kelly on features, products and companies. "[The feature] may be novel, useful, desirable, and marketable. But how big and autonomous will it be? Is it big enough to sell as a product in itself, with all the necessary support that requires? And is that product big enough to be able to sustain a company and all the overhead an organization demands?"

His conclusion, which you should go read for yourself, made me think that the inverse of Coase's transaction economics (and the theory of the firm) is attention economics. Probably not an original thought, but it's the distinction between demand-driven company boundaries and supply-driven company boundaries.