Sorry, this was the time of “new economics” where serious economists were talking about unlimited and endless growth thanks to computers and the internet. Had t

Sorry, this was the time of “new economics” where serious economists were talking about unlimited and endless growth thanks to computers and the internet. Had to sit in class after class where professors were telling me that with IT this time it was different (they had exposure to pMail and Stata). I love to hate on Krugman for his turn from serious economist to political pundit, but here he was wildly more on mark than the opposite side of the debate. The one who really got it early on was Hal Varian. In his microeconomic analysis there are many parts where he seems to be like explaining markets that didn’t exist yet, but came to be massive. Google didn’t pick him up for nothing. What Ben Thompson calls aggregators was in his book, well was sketched there in principles. A 1987 book! (I worked through a 90s revision and that’s where my memories come from.)