Digital Dark Matter and the Economic Contribution of Apache

Shane  Greenstein; Frank  Nagle

Article | Research Policy | May 2014

Digital Dark Matter and the Economic Contribution of Apache

Abstract

Researchers have long hypothesized that research outputs from government, university, and private company R&D contribute to economic growth, but these contributions may be difficult to measure when they take a non-pecuniary form. The growth of networking devices and the Internet in the 1990s and 2000s magnified these challenges, as illustrated by the deployment of the descendent of the NCSA HTTPd server, otherwise known as Apache. This study asks whether this experience could produce measurement issues in standard productivity analysis, specifically, omission and attribution issues, and, if so, whether the magnitude is large enough to matter. The study develops and analyzes a novel data set consisting of a 1% sample of all outward-facing web servers used in the United States. We find that use of Apache potentially accounts for a mismeasurement of somewhere between $2 billion and $12 billion, which equates to between 1.3% and 8.7% of the stock of prepackaged software in private fixed investment in the United States and a very high rate of return to the original federal investment in the Internet. We argue that these findings point to a large potential undercounting of the rate of return from IT spillovers from the invention of the Internet. The findings also suggest a large potential undercounting of "digital dark matter" in general.

Keywords: open source; Apache; Economic measurement; Digital economics; Measurement and Metrics; Open Source Distribution; Internet; Information Technology; Software; Economic Growth; Research and Development; Web Services Industry; Information Technology Industry; United States;

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Citation:

Greenstein, Shane, and Frank Nagle. "Digital Dark Matter and the Economic Contribution of Apache." Research Policy 43, no. 4 (May 2014): 623–631. (Lead Article.)

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In this paper we examine Intel’s launch of Centrino and interpret it as platform leader’s attempt to restructure a supply chain. We provide a narrative of key actions and how they coordinated changes and offer a framework of the predictable consequences for complementary markets. We then collect data and test these predictions on outcomes in several related complementary markets. The overall findings are consistent with our framework. We show that the launch of Centrino increased the likelihood of exit from internal and external Wi-Fi cards markets, and we find that the magnitude of the effect was largest for internal cards. We also show that the launch of Centrino stimulated product introduction in the markets for complements overall and find that the effect varied across type of routers. Finally, we show that experience with producing Wi-Fi cards shaped product introduction by router providers.

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

A Little Help from My Friends: How Receiving Assistance Affects Participation in Online Knowledge-Sharing Communities

Eunkwang Seo, Frank Nagle and Sonali K. Shah

Online knowledge-sharing communities are important arenas for the development and exchange of knowledge; both firm participation and sponsorship in communities are increasing, as is scholarly interest in understanding how interactions between members shape subsequent participation. We contribute to this literature by examining the relationship between two increasingly relevant, yet underexplored, sets of factors: we examine the effects of with whom an interaction occurs (a user or an employee) on two types of participatory outcomes (future asking versus future replying). Specifically, we examine whether receiving a reply to a question––and from whom the reply is received––affects a new member’s likelihood of asking another question or replying to a question. We examine fifteen years of data from Statalist, the online community that formed around the Stata statistical software package. Our findings show that receiving a reply from another user is positively associated with future questioning, but negatively associated with future replying. However, receiving a reply from a firm employee is positively associated with future replying. To help address endogeneity concerns, we conducted qualitative interviews with Stata employees, used fixed-effects models, implemented an instrumental variable-based approach, utilized a two-stage Heckman selection model, and applied coarsened exact matching; the findings remain consistent. These findings suggest that social interactions play a key, albeit nuanced, role in shaping subsequent participation and the continued health of a community.

Keywords: online communities; knowledge development; innovation; reciprocity; Knowledge Sharing; Networks; Innovation and Invention; Interpersonal Communication;

Citation:

Seo, Eunkwang, Frank Nagle, and Sonali K. Shah. "A Little Help from My Friends: How Receiving Assistance Affects Participation in Online Knowledge-Sharing Communities." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-026, August 2020. View Details

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Digital Dark Matter and the Economic Contribution of Apache

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