A Note on Switching Costs and Technology Choice
构建了一个简单模型，说明品牌间的转换成本（如软件不兼容）可能导致劣质技术被市场采纳，即使消费者事前认为产品无差异。
IT IS a commonplace claim that the IBM PC owes its success not to technical superiority but to the belief that it would be successful. This note presents a simple model where switching costs between brands, say because of incompatible software, can lead to an inferior technology being adopted. Switching costs arise when buyers find it costly to switch to a competitor once they have bought from one manufacturer, even if ex ante their products were identical.1 If consumers care about which firms survive, perhaps because they need to buy spare parts, then their belief that particular firms will succeed may ensure that these firms do indeed succeed since, possibly more efficient, rivals may be unable o overcome consumers' reluctance to buy. One may therefore find inferior technologies being adopted. This model can be seen as an example of the analysis of Katz and Shapiro [1986] in which expectations can also lead to poorer products winning out. In their model this is because of 'network externalities', that is to say consumers value a product more highly the more other consumers buy it. Here there are no direct network externalities but the presence of switching costs and increasing returns together generates an indirect externality since the more consumers who buy a product the more likely it is to survive and the more attractive it is to other consumers.