Editorial: It's tough being a consumer today

Consuming in the analogue world is easy. If I want to try Ariel instead of my usual Persil, Kenco instead of Nescafé, or Tesco's brand instead of Andrex, all I have to do is nudge my hand further along the supermarket shelf. Loyalty is in the mind, my mind, to be strengthened or weakened at will, my will. All fmcg markets contain a number of competing brands where the top two or three often have very similar shares.

In dramatic contrast, Kieran Levis (page 22) describes the way things work in the digital world where powerful network effects and positive feedback loops result in a 'winner takes all' picture, leaving a competitive frame wholly unlike familiar fmcg or services markets. The power of Medcalf's Law (the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system) has ensured that through these powerful barriers to entry, a small number of smart operators such as Google, eBay and Microsoft each dominates its particular space.

But these barriers can leave consumers frustratingly powerless because of the huge switching costs involved – not necessarily in terms of cash but in time and sanity. Try getting out of AOL and you will be required to re-enter what may run into hundreds of names in another ISP's address book because AOL has been automatically saving addresses and, not surprisingly, won't let you switch them over. It's hard to find a consistent position on this: like most users of internet giants, I'd be lost without them.

Instead, if you think of networks and positive feedback loops as metaphors, you can draw some comfort in seeing how these same principles are beginning to apply to brands not in the digital world. People increasingly make judgments on reviewer sites, price comparison sites, blogs and feedback forums. Similarly campaigning user groups can cause serious damage to brands that behave unethically, incompetently or just plain rudely. Consumer-generated bandwagons and snowballs lack the power of physical networks but go some way to restoring the balance of power.

RORY GETS THE LAST WORD

We are pleased to welcome a new regular columnist, Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of the Ogilvy Group UK and newly installed chairman of the IPA, whose words of wit, contrariness and paradox may be found on the final page of this issue.

Judie Lannon Editor

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