What is it about?
It is often claimed that new technologies will disrupt marketing channels -- but how that disruption plays out depends on the particular role that each intermediaries plays in the system. This paper described the key dynamic which determines whether predictions of disruption in marketing networks are a threat or an opportunity for intermediaries.
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Why is it important?
The dynamics of technology disruption in market channels began with the internet, continued with smartphones, and are still affecting businesses today. Many predictions are clickbait simply intended to attract attention. This paper identifies critical preconditions that must be in place for a technological change to truely threaten or create opportunities for market intermediaries.
Perspectives
It is amazing to see how the fundamental ideas we identified in the early days of the internet are still driving disruption. Although the named of players and the technologies have changed, the underlying importances of basic transaction costs and the intermediaries roles in optimizing transactions continue to make the difference between disintermediation and the emergence of new intermediaries in the online marketplace.
Brian S Butler
University of Maryland at College Park
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Intermediaries and Cybermediaries: Sarkar, Butler and Steinfield, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, June 2006, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.1995.tb00167.x.
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