"digitalization - the coding of numbers, words, images and sounds, reducing them to a chain of digits consisting of ones and zeros. ... the crucial content of the so-called information society is the digitalization of the products and services that an economy produces. Like the 2 preceding industrial revolutions, which were based on the exploitation of steam power and electricity, this third revolution will change society and the national economy in many ways. Broader use of information technology can be expected to improve productivity and raise the quality of life, to lower prices, to create jobs and eliminate them, and give rise to new wealth.

... What is new about current economic developments is that digital technology is boosting the significance of intangible, digital products in the production, consumption and wealth of the national economy. These are products whose economic value does not depend on their physical form but on a digital one - bits. Examples of these are computer programs and games, videos, CD discs, CD ROMs, multimedia products, electronic libraries and databases, many financial services, products and services on the Internet and digital television broadcasts.

The ultimate point about an information society is not that information in itself has greater significance than before, nor that IT is somehow changing the ground rules of the economy to create a "new economic system". What is important is that the market mechanism operates in a different way for virtual products than for conventional material products. The value to a consumer of a digital product depends largely on how many other consumers have it - in other words how large the product's network of consumers is. Economies of scale in demand will therefore be more important factors underlying economic growth than economies of scale in production." (A revolution of zeroes and ones; Matti Pohjola. Unitas. Helsinki: 1999.Vol.71, Iss. 3;  pg. 15, 6 pgs)