The internet shifted power from companies to consumers, changing what winning requires

Schmidt and Rosenberg argue that widespread internet access, search, reviews, and social media fundamentally altered the balance of power between businesses and the people they sell to. Where companies once controlled information asymmetry, deciding what customers knew about competing products, consumers can now instantly compare prices, read reviews, and discover alternatives with minimal effort. This means marketing spin and legacy brand loyalty can no longer paper over a mediocre product, since customers will simply find out and switch. The authors treat this as the foundational shift explaining everything else in the book: if consumers hold the power, the only durable strategy is building products good enough to win on merit, which in turn dictates what kind of talent and organizational structure a company needs. Takeaway: in a transparent market, product quality has replaced information control as the primary competitive weapon.