This semester, I participate in a seminar joint with Christine Goth (Hanse Law School) on Intellectual Property Rigths and Innovation Processes. We are still in the first stages, but what has impressed me most so far is Lawrence Lessig and his idea of hybrid companies – half commercial, half community. Examples would be Amazon and Google, among others. Users add value to those websites just by using them: every search makes Google better, and every book bought makes Amazon’s recommendations better. Once the websites reach a certain size, it’s hard to compete against them. However, users have a stake in it and might not be interested in more competition as long as the commerical side “behaves well”. Recommended.
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