E-commerce: how to understand the influence of the three laws of network economy on economic growth

Network economy is a new economic form based on computer network (especially Internet) and centered on modern information technology. It not only refers to the rise and rapid growth of information technology industry with computer as the core, but also includes the rise and rapid development of the whole high-tech industry based on modern computer technology, including the profound revolutionary changes and leap-forward development of traditional industries and traditional economic sectors caused by the popularization and application of high technology.

Therefore, the network economy cannot be understood as a pure "virtual" economy that is independent of and completely opposite to the traditional economy. In fact, it is an advanced economic development form based on the traditional economy and the upgrading of modern information technology with computers as the core.

Network economy is based on the informationization of national economy. All kinds of enterprises use information and network technology to integrate various information resources, and rely on the internal and external information networks of enterprises to carry out dynamic business activities, research and development, manufacturing, sales and management activities. It is based on information flow, logistics and capital flow, and relies on the network to realize economy. The network economy has changed the traditional business model and business philosophy of enterprises.

Network economy has two basic elements: the "set" of economic actors and the "set" of economic chains. The network economy is not so much composed of economic actors, as it is composed of special economic ties among economic actors. Economic actors and their connections can be homogeneous or heterogeneous. In other words, economic actors and their contact chains can be in the same industry or in different industries.

Network economy has narrow sense and broad sense. The narrow sense of network economy mainly refers to the information and communication technology industry cluster with information and computer network as the core. In a broad sense, the network economy mainly refers to an industrial cluster composed of telecom, electric power, energy, transportation and other network operation industries. Network economists believe that network economy has become economies of scale or scope, and its economic operation often involves the scope of a country, even across national boundaries, linking several countries or a huge region.

Network economy is a concrete form of knowledge economy, and this new economic form is affecting social economy and people's lives at an extremely fast speed. Compared with the traditional economy, the network economy has the following remarkable characteristics: rapidity, high permeability, self-expansion, increasing marginal benefits, external economy, sustainability and directness.

1. fortress

Eliminating the gap between time and space is one of the fundamental changes in the world caused by the Internet. First of all, the Internet broke through the traditional national and regional boundaries, was integrated by the network, closely linked the whole world, and turned the earth into a "village". On the Internet, regardless of race, nationality, country, occupation and social status, people can freely exchange and roam information, and people's dependence on space is greatly reduced.

Secondly, by breaking through the time limit, information transmission and economic exchange between people can be carried out in a shorter time span. Network economy can run 24 hours, and economic activities are less restricted by time factors. Third, the network economy is a speed economy. Modern information network can transmit information at the speed of light, and the network economy collects, processes and applies information at a near real-time speed, which greatly accelerates the pace.

If the 1980s was an era of paying attention to quality and the 1990s was an era of paying attention to redesign, then the first 10 year of the 20th century was an era of paying attention to speed. Therefore, the development trend of network economy should be "real-time economy" or "real-time operation economy" which is highly sensitive to market changes. Finally, the network economy is essentially a global economy.

Because information network has turned the whole world into a "global village"; Geographical distance has become irrelevant, and the restrictions on spatial elements in network-based economic activities have been minimized, which has greatly accelerated the globalization of the whole economy and strengthened the interdependence of countries in the world.

2. High permeability

The rapid development of information technology and network technology, with high penetration function, makes the information service industry rapidly expand to the primary and secondary industries, blurs the boundaries between the three industries, and there is a trend of the integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries. The classification of the three major industries has also been challenged.

Therefore, the academic circles put forward the concept of "the fourth industry" to cover the information industry in a broad sense; In "Information Economy: Definition and Measurement" published by 1977, Paula, a famous American economist, divided the industrial sector into agriculture, industry, service industry and information industry for the first time, and divided the information industry into the first information sector and the second information sector according to whether its products or services are directly sold in the market. The first information department includes all industries that produce and sell information machinery or information services in the current market, such as computer manufacturing, electronic communication, printing, mass communication, advertising, accounting, education and so on.

The second information sector includes management departments in most public, official institutions and private enterprises. In addition, all kinds of information services produced and consumed by non-information sector enterprises also belong to the second information sector. As can be seen from the above industrial classification, the information industry, as an important part of the network economy, has widely penetrated into traditional industries.

For traditional industries such as commerce, banking, media and manufacturing, it is an inevitable choice to quickly upgrade and transform industries by using information technology and network technology to meet the opportunities and challenges brought by the network economy.

Moreover, the high permeability of information technology has also spawned some emerging "marginal industries", such as optical electronics industry, medical electronic equipment industry, avionics industry, automotive electronics industry and so on. Taking the automotive electronics industry as an example, automotive electronic devices appeared in the 1960s, and the development speed was obviously accelerated in the middle and late 1970s. In 1980s, a high-tech industry called automobile electronization was formed. It can be said that under the impetus of network information technology, the speed of mutual integration between industries and the development of emerging industries has been greatly improved.

3. Self-inflation

The self-expansion of the network economy is manifested in four laws:

One is Moore's Law.

This law is named after Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel Corporation. 1965, Moore predicted that the computing power of a single silicon chip would double every 18 months, and at the same time, the price would be halved. The practice of more than 30 years has proved that this prediction is relatively accurate, and it is expected that there will still be a long application period in the future. It is predicted that by 20 10, the computing power of ordinary computers will be 10 billion times that of ordinary computers in 1975.

The second is Metcalfe's law.

According to this law, the value of network economy is equal to the square of the number of network nodes, which shows that the benefits generated and brought by the network will increase exponentially with the increase of network users. Judging from the current trend, the number of netizens will increase by 1 times every six months, while internet communication is rare every 100 days. At present, the number of netizens in the world has reached 350 million, and it is expected to soar to 654.38+0 billion in four years. This explosive and sustained growth will inevitably lead to the soaring value of the network. This is exactly what kevin kelly called the "fax effect", that is, "in the network economy, the richer things, the greater the value".

The third is the Matthews effect.

In the network economy, due to people's psychological reaction and behavioral inertia, under certain conditions, once the advantages or disadvantages appear and reach a certain level, they will

It will lead to continuous intensification and self-reinforcement, and there will be a monopoly situation of "the strong are stronger and the weak are weaker". Matthew effect reflects an important factor of enterprise competition in the network economy era-mainstreaming. "The basic law of non-friction is actually very simple-the greater the market share you occupy, the more you will profit, that is, the richer the rich." Compuserve and AOL are two online service providers in America. Before 1995, Compuserve occupied a large market share and had an advantage in mutual competition. Starting from 1995, AOL adopted the mainstream strategy and presented millions of PC desktop software to consumers, which "occupied the market like lightning" and quickly surpassed Comuserve.

The fourth is Gilder's law.

According to the prediction of American radical technology theorist George Gilder, in the foreseeable future (future 10 year), the total bandwidth of communication system will increase by three times every year. With the continuous improvement of communication ability, Gilder asserted that the transmission price per bit jumped to the direction of free, the trend of cost showed an "asymptotic curve" law, and the price point was infinitely close to zero.

The four laws of network economy not only show the scale and speed of self-expansion of network economy, but also prompt its internal laws.

4. Incremental marginal benefit

Marginal benefits will increase or decrease with the expansion of production scale. In the production process of material products in industrial society, diminishing marginal benefit is a universal law, because the traditional factors of production-land, capital and labor-all have the characteristics of increasing marginal cost and diminishing marginal benefit. On the contrary, the network economy shows an obvious increasing marginal benefit.

(1) The marginal cost of network economy is decreasing. The cost of information network mainly consists of three parts: one is the cost of network construction, the other is the cost of information transmission, and the third is the cost of information collection, processing and production. Because the information network can be used for a long time, its construction cost has nothing to do with the information transmission cost and the number of people accessing the network.

Therefore, the marginal cost of the first two parts is zero, and the average cost has an obvious decreasing trend. Only the third cost is related to the number of people accessing the network, that is, the more people accessing the network, the more information needs to be collected, processed and produced, and this part of the cost will increase, but its average cost and marginal cost show a downward trend.

Therefore, the average cost of information network decreases obviously with the increase of internet users, and its marginal cost decreases slowly, but the income of network increases with the increase of internet users. The larger the network scale, the greater the total income and marginal income.

(2) The network economy has cumulative appreciation. In the network economy, the investment in information can not only get the general investment return, but also get the value-added return of information accumulation. This is because on the one hand, information network can play a special role in processing, processing, analyzing and synthesizing a large number of scattered and disorderly materials, data and information according to users' requirements, thus forming orderly and high-quality information resources and providing scientific basis for economic decision-making.

At the same time, the use of information has a transmission effect. The use of information will bring more and more returns. For example, a piece of technical information can be used in production of any scale. That is to say, under the condition that the information cost has hardly increased, the continuous expansion of the scale of information use can bring about the continuous increase of income. This transmission effect also makes the network economy show a trend of increasing marginal income.

5. External saving factors

General market transaction is a kind of contract concluded by buyers and sellers according to their own independent decisions, which is only binding on both parties and does not involve or affect the interests of other market entities. However, in some cases, the consequences of contract performance often affect third parties (individuals or groups) other than the parties to the contract.

These economic entities that have nothing to do with the contract but are affected can be collectively called external, and their influence is called external effect. The external effects of contract performance are good and bad, which are called external economy and external diseconomy respectively. Usually, industrial economy mainly brings external diseconomy, such as industrial "three wastes", while network economy mainly shows external economy. Just like kevin kelly's rule that concatenation is more important than addition, the network forms a self-reinforcing virtual cycle.

Increasing the number of members increases the value and attracts more members. Form a spiral advantage. "The total value of a telephone system belongs to the sum of the internal total value of each telephone company and its assets, and belongs to the larger external telephone network itself", and the network has become a "particularly effective external value resource".

6. Sustainability

Network economy is a specific information network economy or information network economy, which is closely related to information economy or information economics. This relationship is both special and general, both partial and whole. In this sense, network economy is a concrete form of knowledge economy, and knowledge and information are also the main resources to support network economy. Toffler, an American futurist, pointed out: "Knowledge has become the most precious element in all resources necessary for creating wealth, and … knowledge is becoming the ultimate substitute for all tangible resources." It is the characteristics of knowledge and information that make the network economy sustainable.

Information and knowledge can be shared, which is obviously different from physical objects. After the general physical commodity transaction, the seller loses the physical object, while after the information and knowledge transaction, the person who sells the information does not lose the information, but forms a situation in which the seller and the buyer enjoy the information and knowledge. Nowadays, especially with the rapid development of traditional technologies such as recording, video recording, copying, computer and network, the ability of information regeneration is very strong, which creates more convenient conditions for the enjoyment of information resources.

More importantly, in the production process of knowledge products, knowledge and information, as the main resources, have the characteristics of zero consumption. As toffler pointed out, "land, labor, raw materials and perhaps capital can all be regarded as limited resources, while knowledge is actually inexhaustible." "The new information technology has pushed the cost of product diversification to zero and reduced the importance of economies of scale that were once crucial." To a great extent, network economy can effectively put an end to the excessive consumption of tangible resources and energy by traditional industrial production, resulting in environmental pollution, ecological deterioration and other hazards, and realize the sustainable development of social economy.

Step 7 be direct

Due to the development of the network, the economic organization structure tends to be thin and flat, and the producers and consumers at the end of the network can contact directly, which reduces the necessity of the existence of the traditional middleman level, thus significantly reducing transaction costs and improving economic benefits. In order to explain many economic phenomena brought by the network economy that can't be explained by traditional economic theories, Mr. Hu put forward the theory of "direct economy". In his view, if barter is the most primitive direct economy, then today's new economy is a higher level accessible economy based on the network. From the historical perspective of economic development, it is a return of economic form, that is, agricultural economy (direct economy)-industrial economy (circuitous economy)-network economy (direct economy).

The theory of direct economy advocates that network economy should straighten out all kinds of tortuous paths in industrial economy and shorten intermediate links. In the development process of information networking, it will constantly break through the traditional process mode, gradually complete the re-division of economic stock and the initial construction of incremental distribution principle, historically reconstruct the relationship among information flow, logistics and capital flow, and compress or even cancel unnecessary intermediate links.

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