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Unpriced and Crucial | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore

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Some long-term economic changes—even those that define an era—can sneak up on everyone, becoming evident only in the rearview mirror. Today’s column highlights one of those, namely, that many crucial inputs for digital businesses have a hidden value. This typically arises when the input costs nothing—i.e., it is available for “free” in common parlance. That happens typically because storage of a small file costs little, and firms find it in their interest to charge nothing. Unpriced digital services are nothing new, you might say. After all, it is common in advertising-supported media and services. Today’s column wants to focus on one interesting piece of this: the number of crucial inputs that cost nothing. Consider platforms built around user-generated content, such as Wikipedia. Or consider services constructed with open source software like those found on GitHub or open showroom platforms like Hugging Face (HF). Additional examples are software languages and frameworks for artifici

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