I will soon post my theory on how the fact that cultural goods’ shift from being experience goods to search goods actually changes the market. Till then read p2pnet.net’s stroy on how it is happening in practice:
“The p2p networks are invaluable. My young daughter, Emma, and I use them to sort out the garbage, meaning most Hollywood product. Does that mean we don’t go to the movies any more? Nope. We (I should say I) downloaded The Incredibles, Over the Hedge, March of the Penguins and Corpse Bride and we not only went to see them at our local cinema (a half-hour’s drove away, BTW), we also bought DVDs of the last two. That’s not huge. But we saw, and bought, what we, not Hollywood, wanted. On top of that, we home-school Emma and she enjoyed the extras that come with the DVDs. And since we’re not loaded, think of the money we’ve saved! Trying-before-buying? As a dad without a vast income, I like it. Thank you, p2p networks ………”