Customer Resources and Economic Sustainability of Online Channels

Abstract

In this chapter, I used the strategy dynamics methodology, which is a combination of the resource-based theory and system dynamics, to explain the sustained ability of two online channels to deliver economic value to its users. I posed that since spam and file-sharing applications are acutely dependent on customer resources they both can be understood in terms of the limits-to-growth generic feedback structure. That insight led to a conclusion that these digital channels were able to survive and thrive due to their underlying feedback structure. The computer experiments, however, made it clear that despite their apparent invulnerability commercial e-mail and file-sharing can succumb to strong external shocks.