externalities

In economics, an externality is when costs or benefits of the production and provision of a product or service have impacts beyond those involved in the transaction, crucially not reflected in its price. Classic examples are often environmental, such as particulates from a factory chimney, which harm health downwind of the chimney. In digital services network externalities are important; this is the positive gain in value of using a piece of software when others in your social or personal network use the same software, potentially leading to emergent monopolies. In addition, while the adoption of new technology, such as AI, may seem cheaper than using human employees, this may shift costs to the state in terms of higher welfare support and lower tax revenue,