Why is the information asymmetric? I think this may be a general rule. The unbalanced development of natural resources and environment leads to geographical and ecological diversity, which in turn leads to various human differences, and finally forms a colorful world where good and evil coexist. Within our controllable range, this asymmetry is mainly manifested in
In the commercial society, most businessmen earn small money through information asymmetry, which will always exist, such as the ongoing second-hand housing transactions in street shops and the daily necessities transactions in husband and wife shops. On the contrary, only a few great businessmen make big money by reducing information asymmetry. For example, Henry Ford delivered cars to ordinary people's homes through assembly line operation, and Alibaba allowed ordinary people to buy goods from all over the country at a lower cost.
Although "information asymmetry" will always exist in commercial society, it will become smaller and smaller with the continuous development of society. The so-called information symmetry, that is, under the market conditions, in order to achieve effective trading, both parties to the transaction must have symmetrical information (relatively as much). Otherwise, the well-informed party will often be in a more favorable position.
What methods can effectively reduce information asymmetry? There are probably:
So far, the industries with high information asymmetry are:
The network effect is the most powerful force of the Internet. This means that the value of a product to a user depends on the number of other users who use the product. The more users, the more valuable. The more valuable, the more users, and the relationship that constantly promotes each other. Even once the total number of users exceeds a certain critical value, it will enter the state of "winner takes all".
It is precisely because of the great power of the network effect that once the Internet giants gain a foothold in a certain industry, it is difficult to be surpassed by other companies. For example, the unilateral network effect formed in social products, even if a powerful company like Ali invests resources, can not shake Tencent's social empire; The same is true in the field of electronic commerce. Through years of accumulation, the bilateral network effect formed by Ali buyers and sellers will not be easily shaken by other companies; In the search field, Baidu's three network effects formed by individual users, websites and advertisers will not be easily replaced by other players.
The power of the network effect is so powerful, it is not difficult to understand why many apps increase or strengthen the social sharing function more or less in basic functions, just to build their own protective wall through the network effect.
It can be said that the network effect comes from tools and stays because of the network.
In addition, there are the following companies and phenomena with network effects:
Marginal cost refers to the increase in the total cost of each product produced or sold. In fact, "margin" is a very important concept in economics. It can be said that the whole modern economic thought is based on this concept. Teacher Xue Zhaofeng said that "margin" means "addition" brought by "addition".
For airlines, should we sell the remaining seats at a low price one or two hours before departure? Many people think that selling at a low price is a loss, so they should not sell at a low price. But in fact, it should be sold, because if you analyze it with the concept of "marginal", you will know that if you can't sell it in the last hour or two, you will completely lose these potential incomes, and if you sell it at a low price, you only need to pay a small cost, mainly meals, and you can get more income. Shouldn't you?
On the Internet, the structural change of marginal cost is the most important influence of Internet economy on traditional economy.
Think about it, when there is no internet, retailers have to reopen their stores twenty or thirty kilometers away if they want to expand their scale. This cost is very high. With the Internet, when an e-commerce company spends a lot of money to develop a good trading platform, it can theoretically serve the whole country and even the whole world, which is an important weapon for Internet companies, such as Amazon, Alibaba and JD.COM, to attack traditional retail enterprises.
The Internet has a natural marginal cost advantage, especially virtual products, which also helps to understand why Apple is confident to accept 30% revenue from virtual products and services. Because there is no platform provided by Apple, on the one hand, you can't achieve it, on the other hand, you can easily benefit from working only once.
And some products and services that hitchhike online based on working hours actually do not have marginal cost advantages, such as O2O car wash, haircut and manicure.
The long tail theory was put forward by Chris Anderson, the former editor-in-chief of Wired magazine in the United States, in his book The Long Tail Theory, which means that with the emergence of the Internet, enterprises will be able to meet people's personalized needs on a large scale.
Why did all this become possible after the advent of the Internet? Because in industrialized society, all goods are produced in large quantities. In order to meet the needs of most people, they can only average people's personalities. For individuals, these goods can only meet the most basic needs, and their personality is extinct.
However, with the continuous development of society, individuals are getting richer and richer, able to bear high prices and willing to pursue personalized products and services. Coupled with the continuous progress of science and technology, it can indeed meet individual needs on a large scale. For example, C2M mode and flexible production line, which are becoming more and more popular at present, first obtain users' needs, and then reverse customize products and services by manufacturers, and then consume the experience after completion. Therefore, Ma Yun recently said, "In the future, it is not that the factory has the ability to receive orders for 10,000 pieces of clothing, but that it really has the ability to receive orders for one piece of clothing."
In fact, up to now, most of us have personally experienced the long tail theory. For example, you can always find very niche products on "Universal Taobao" and Amazon, but you can't find them in the shops at the door, because the Internet has an inherent marginal cost advantage, but the small shops at the door don't.
Remember, the long tail theory has three premises:
It is said that there is no free lunch in the world, but there are all kinds of free products and services on the Internet.
The revolutionary business model of "free" is one of the important factors for the vigorous development of the Internet. If there are not so many free products and services on the Internet, it is likely that the Internet is still a tool for the rich, just like wired telephone and cable TV, and there has been no breakthrough. Although so far, Yahoo, founded by Stanford University doctoral student Yang Zhiyuan and others, is rarely used, we can't forget these innovators, just as Wu Jun commented on Yang Zhiyuan and others in "Top of the Wave":
Liberal economics was first put forward by Chris Anderson in his other book Freedom. His two books, The Long Tail Theory and Free, shocked the whole Internet industry, and even Lei Jun called them the theoretical basis of the Internet.
In Chris's view, in fact, the essence of free is "two-stage charging". First, we can gain the attention of consumers and other scarce resources through free products and services, and then we can make profits by feeding back free products in an appropriate way. In this regard, a popular saying is: the wool is on the pig and the dog pays the bill.
Regarding free, there are the following ways to play: