On the origins of digital economies

In this chapter I focus on the origins of digital economies, where by ‘origins’ is meant the time span from the 1940s to the late 1990s. I focus on this period because the recent debate, particularly since general-purpose artificial intelligence has emerged in the early 2020s, seems to have obliterated the important contributions of the foundational and first development periods of digital technologies. I believe that this short résumé of a few fundamental steps which have led to today’s digital environment will clarify the fact that the characterisation of many economies as digital is fully justified since the mid-1990s.