The digital revolution is eating its young

As massive online platforms have given rise to numerous virtual marketplaces, a gap has opened between the real and the digital economies. And by driving more people than ever online in search of goods, services, and employment, the novel coronavirus pandemic is widening it.

The risk is that a new digital industrial complex will hamper market efficiency by imposing rents on real economy players whose daily operations depend on technology.

The premise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is that the tangible and intangible elements of today's economy can coexist and create new productive synergies. The tangible side of the economy provides the infrastructure upon which automation, manufacturing, and complex trade networks rest, and intangibles－logistics, communications and other software and Big Data applications－allow for these processes to achieve optimal efficiency.