This book develops a theory of a cyclical pattern in the economy. The pattern describes how certain new technologies spread to become a whole new way of structuring society. The author Carlota Perez calls this a technological revolution and it’s associated “techno-economic paradigm”.
In this review I want to summarize her theory using less jargon. Even though the book reads like an academic text, and the jargon is used consistently, I want to dig into the idea in more common language.
Publishers need to make a living. Journalists, video producers, musicians, and bloggers all have to pay their bills.
The two common ways of making money from online content are:
Free content with ads Subscription content without ads Sometimes publishers use both, but with a reduced number of ads for subscribers, magazine-style.
The trouble with subscriptions is that people can quickly feel saturated. Once you subscribe to WaPo, NYTimes, WSJ, you might want to read that LATimes article, but don’t want to sign up for yet another monthly subscription.