The economics and business models of prescription in the Internet

Our premise is that the mechanisms at work in distribution and intermediation at stake in the business models existing on Internet should be assessed in terms of a prescription economy. By analyzing the markets in terms of prescription, i.e. the capacity of a firm to transform the potential request of a customer into a specific proposal of products, we can investigate the structure of a product or service supply, the decision-making process involved in purchasing, market configurations, and business strategies and models. Analyzing intermediation and information markets in terms of prescription means considering three-pronged markets where prescribers are not simple intermediaries but third parties : they act alongside producers and consumers – not between them – in order to structure the product or service supply or to assume responsibility for some aspect of the consumer decision. If we proceed on this assumption, we can identify the market strategies and structures that characterize a prescription economy.