Has the American Empire simply moved online? That’s the argument made in an enjoyable polemic by Sean Ennis, Internet Empire: The Hidden Digital War. It’s a book with two strands. One about wars and empires through history: what motivates conflict, how empires grab territory when the economic advantages outweigh the costs of maintaining the colonies, why empires either collapse or survive.

This is braided with an account of how the US (and, thanks to protection of its domestic market, China) won near-global dominance of the internet and the money to be made from the internet for its own companies. Marvellous technology, an economic system favouring enterprise and investment, and active policy support from successive US governments have created the market-dominant players who shape modern life.

Hence, “The core thesis of this book is that the modern-day internet structure is economically equivalent to what, in prior times, would have been an empire acquired through aggression into new territories.” The aggression this time has involved weapons such as effective lobbying/political blackmail over tax and trade policies, control of domain names, non-enforcement of antitrust policies to enable the giants to grow, and so on. It’s an interesting analogy although I’m not persuaded that commercial and actual conflict/conquest are really similar.

The US succeeded where France’s earlier Minitel system did not, the book argues, because Minitel was a closed interface system run by a state-owned incumbent telco – whereas in the US, AOL tried this approach in the early internet days but dropped this when the attractions of the open internet to users became both evident and available through browsers and the web. “The unquestionable French lead in the release of digital technology was squandered by the country.”

This prompts two reflections. One is that the book – in asking with Europe has no internet giants – ignores the advantage of scale. When there are high fixed costs and netwrok effects, the bigger the addressable market the better.

The other is that if open beats closed in the end, are the current internet giants undermining their own success? For what they are trying to do is tie users in ever-more tightly, and exploiting this captive market to degrade their services – just think how much search results have deteriorated on Google or Amazon. Meanwhile Mr Musk is similarly degrading the attractiveness of Twitter. The width of the open goal they are presenting to newcomers with their own great technology is increasing by the day. Regulators and competition authorities can help by mandating more, much more, open data and interoperability – as the Bundeskartellamt seems to be doing.

Still, as the book concludes, we can all do something. It ends with a list of To Dos: use multiple platforms – click away from Google. Buy direct from sellers even if it’s a bit less convenient. Go to the local high street to shop. Pay for a newspaper. In short, give up just a bit of the convenience and cost-saving to keep the digital giants on their toes and maybe open the way for new ones to come along. I’m sceptical individual action will make a big difference although happy to encourage the use of Hirschman’s Exit and Voice disciplines. It’s going to take policy choices, and almost certainly by the EU, to reshape digital markets.

It has taken me a shamefully long time to read Will Page’s excellent book Tarzan Economics. Will was Spotify’s economist and before his move into the music business had worked for the Scottish Government. So he has the distinct advantage of being able to wear two pairs of spectacles to look at digital disruption, the policy lens and the lens of the disruptor. The term ‘Tarzan Economics’ refers to the leap businesses need to make from one vine in the business jungle as it descends, to another vine, in order not to crash to the ground. The book combines economic analysis of digitalisation with business advice, and carries off the combination. It isn’t in quite the same league as Shapiro and Varian’s now old classic (1998) Information Rules, but on the other hand is far more up to date and gives us a front row seat for what has happened in the music business.

It was always astonishing to me (see Sex, Drugs and Economics) that the music business reacted to the Napster et al threat by deciding it would be a good idea to prosecute their biggest fans (rather than responding to the demand for unbundling). As Will writes, “If piracy of a particular artist was increasing, the lawyers would be getting worried about intellectual property being stolen, whereas the promotion departments would recognise they had a hit on their hands.” The book identifies the real threat to any content business being the limited amount of time and attention we all have. There are nice examples of more sensible ways of responding (other thany trying to put your customers in prison). One is the Atlanta Falcons having made their stadium a pleasant environment with good, reasonably priced food and no rip-offs. Elasticity of demand is such that revenues per attendee have risen substantially, attending the game winning out for enough people over watching on TV from the La-Z-Boy recliner at home.

The book is structured around (as the subtitle has it) ‘eight principles for pivoting through disruption’. These include for instance tactics for working the dynamics of the long tail and how to price discriminate: voluntary donations can raise more than conventional pricing, for instance, the famous Radiohead experiment in voluntary payment for their album (followed later by release of a special boxed set) being one of the examples here. I found the chapter on the use of data, including Spotify examples, fascinating. There’s a lovely anecdote about Will visiting Richard Thaler, who came up with the answer after the company’s data scientists had failed to discover – despite intense data mining – exactly why Discover Weekly was such a success; I won’t spoil the story.

Will is one of the band of enlightened economists who can think more broadly than many. He gives the specific example here of the limitations of the cost-benefit analysis – for example in deciding whether to invest in a museum; the inspiration and education it provides need to be in the mix along with the visitor numbers and entry fees. Not surprisingly given his Spotify role, he argues that the music industry held on to its damaging old vine for a decade too long but things are looking rosy now – I’m not sure all of the music industry buys into this cheerful, new vine outlook. Nevertheless, it was one of the earliest industries to face profound digital disruption and the lessons are well worth pondering. As Will says, the aim of the eight principles and the examples in the book is not to proclaim answers but to help readers ask the right questions about their situation and pick the most appropriate strategies and tactics.

Whether you are involved in a disrupted business or just interested in digital economics, Tarzan Economics is a terrific read, very nicely written, and with the economic analysis sweetened with plenty of examples. Will will be appearing at the Bristol Festival of Economics talking about it in November.