On-line stores as gatekeepers


Joseph Espisito on Amazon, et al . . .

Today’s gatekeepers are no longer the big media companies (defined as organizations that invest in and distribute content:  books, magazines, television, journals, movies) but the huge technology companies that have learned how to profit from others’ content:  Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook.  Unlike the gatekeepers of old, however, who were characterized by editorial decision-making, the new gatekeepers control access through an abstract network of relationships, some of which qualify as what economists call “network effects”: instead of a product or service increases as more people use it.   A rose by any other name . . .  is still a gatekeeper.

Article. Found through Linked-in.