Economy And Society Of Crowds And Clouds

This chapter discusses some of the economic and social concepts linked to digital ecosystems. Next to the division of work between humans and computers, the new phenomenon of free labour is presented, before we come to the kind of value that really seems to matter in the world of crowds and clouds, which is the network value. It describes how the value of digital assets more and more depends on how deeply they are embedded in the global networks, and how much they motivate other consumers. The network value plays a role in all applications of digital ecosystems that we investigate throughout this book - so much so, that digital assets cannot be discussed any further without considering their network value.