Information Costs

The term information is generally assumed to mean a message. It usually takes an audible or visible form and involves a sender and a receiver. Information is meant to change the way the receiver perceives something, to have an impact on judgment and behavior. The term cost has traditionally been viewed as the value of inputs used to produce something. Since the inputs have been used, they are not available for use anymore. Putting the terms information and cost together, the inputs that constitute a message may not be used up and may well be available for other uses. The issue becomes how much someone is willing to pay for information—in other words, what the value of information is. As “information is power,” it is ...