ABSTRACT
Theoretical work on the question of choice among competing technologies has been associated with the name of W. Brian Arthur and others. The problem that Arthur addressed was that of what influences the choice among two or more technology options that are developed to the point of being clearly superior to an established technology. The adoption of the new technologies takes place over a period of time as users of the old technology retire their horses and buggies and choose among the possible replacements. The standard typewriter and computer keyboard is known as the QWERTY keyboard, after the left-to-right sequence of keys of the top rank. Some of these experienced jamming of striker bars when the typist typed too fast, and the QWERTY arrangement was found to slow typing sufficiently to minimize the jamming problem. The network problem can arise when the existing stock of capital has a number of owners but works as a network across the entire industry.
