Of drills and holes and Ronald Coase: the limits of sharing

“Why do people buy products?” asked Theodore Levitt, the celebrated Harvard Business School professor, at the start of his 1969 book The Marketing Mode. He suggestedan answer:

Leo McGivena once said, “Last yearone million quarter-inch drill bits were sold — not because people wantedquarter-inch drill bits but because they wanted quarter-inch holes.”People don’t buy products, they buy the expectation of benefits.People spend their money not for goods and services, but to get thevalue satisfac...