Digitalisation, anti-rival compensation and governance: Need for experiments

Digitalisation brings forth data and information as major factors of success, redefining business models, changing operational structures, and necessitating strategic change. In the majority of current literature, these changes are assumed to take place within the current economic structures, defined by the prevailing legislation and treaties. However, at the same time some scholars have argued that digitalisation will lead to more fundamental changes, affecting the underlying structures of business in the longer term, in the form of shifting norms, laws, and international treaties.

In this extended abstract, we consider these potential longer term effects, focusing on the so-called anti-rivalry of data, or its negative subtractability, and its consequences. We briefly explore the untypical supply curve for digital products and discuss why their price cannot be based on open market valuation. In particular, we argue that if the subtractability of data and information is indeed negative, as it seems to be, then we may need to invent structurally new governance and compensation structures in order to efficiently clear the data and information markets.