ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the impact of abundance on business activity and on the powerful global corporations and their traditional business models in particular. The emergence of post-scarcity conditions is precipitating a number of new, disruptive business models. Disruption may be the result of a new business model as in the case of easyJet or due to the introduction of a new technology or process. Budget airline easyJet is now a household name. The long tail is named after the type of power law curve that results when plotting the sales of CDs, computer games, books and other products, or the popularity of web sites. In pursuing auction sellers Microsoft has found that the trade in counterfeit software is now global. The inescapable conclusion is that, in the future, successful companies will be those which recognize that the economics of abundance will increasingly determine the market conditions within which they are operating.
