5. Particularities of the Digital Economy

This chapter illustrates the changes digitisation brought with respect to the digital economy and digital markets. It will be shown why markets online differ from markets offline and why established classical economic theory and models might need to be revised and adapted to the novelties related to digitisation and a digital economy. Whether or not markets function similarly or not is crucial in particular for the context analysis necessary for the establishment of an object infringement of competition. Hence, whether a measure offline is, with respect to its potential detrimental impact on competition, to be assessed equally or differently as the very same practice in an online environment depends a lot on whether we can conclude that the context of digital markets is or is not to be equated with (market) mechanisms known from the analogue world. As mentioned initially, a fact one could arguably doubt. Hence, the changing economic environment, that is, economic trends and phenomena evolving due to digitisation (such as, for example, platforms in any form whatsoever) are particularly interesting and crucial when trying to define a coherent approach for the meaning and role of effects in competition law cases.