The rise of the intangible economy can be traced to the US, when businessman Henry P Crowell invented Quaker Oats in 1879. This is the dynamic described by Jonathan Haskell of Imperial College and Stian Westlake of Nesta as “capitalism without capital”. An intangible digital product or process can be replicated and shared a near-infinite number of times at no additional cost. The pioneers of an intangible economy benefit from geographic intimacy, even if their work then flies weightlessly around a global network. There is no reason to believe that the era of intangible capitalism will be different.

Source: The Guardian December 26, 2017 13:41 UTC