Ubiquitous information

Information has a mercurial relationship with its scarcity. While in principle information is not depleted in its use, scarcity nevertheless plays an important role in competitive advantage; well-known facts-of-the-matter provide fewer opportunities than those that are less widely known. This is of course part of the justification for restricting insider trading. Imposed scarcity also contributes to information’s commercial value and this has been the basis for restricting circulation and reproduction through copyright since the Statute of Anne. However, Information is not naturally scarce; hard to come-by, once created, it tends to proliferation. Information can be widely circulated without diminishing its intrinsic usefulness or meaning. Therefore while the volume of recorded information created, stored and used grows dayby-day, its relative importance to competitive advantage has not declined accordingly; more information creates greater value in the ever finer distinction between states of competitive intelligence. It is tempting to argue that information creates value in and of itself, perhaps enabling the circumstances for its own proliferation by creating ever-growing demand for information. Among the many qualities complicating the value of information highlighted by Pijpers (2012) are the following: