American Information Exchange

American Information Exchange

Industry	Software
Founded	1984;39 years ago (1984)
Founder	Phil Salin
Defunct	1992 (1992)
Headquarters	Palo Alto, California, [1] , U.S.
Key people	Chip Morningstar Randy Farmer
Parent	Autodesk

The American Information Exchange (AMIX) was a platform for the buying and selling of information, goods and services as well as the exchange of information, ideas, and certain kinds of intellectual work product, created by economist and futurist Phil Salin ^[2] in the 1980s, ^{[3] [4]} together with Chip Morningstar (chief architect) ^[5] and Randy Farmer, ^{[6] [7] [8]} and involvement from Esther Dyson and Mitch Kapor. ^[9] Economist Bill Tulloh was market manager. ^[10]

Salin began thinking about information marketplaces in the 1970s, ^[11] and was inspired by Friedrich Hayek's idea of spontaneous order. ^[12] Starting in 1984, Salin worked on AMIX as a tool with the goal of elevating individual decision making over central planning, and improving human coordination to help reduce transaction costs in the economy. ^[5] AMIX would be an international network for the exchange of information, consulting contracts, computer code and research. ^[9] He envisaged a world in which the ready exchange of expertise would reduce transaction costs, with wide-ranging beneficial effects. In particular, he predicted that information markets would reduce the need for redundant employees at different organizations, so that companies would become smaller and more efficient, relying on each other as external sources of expertise. He also expected revolutionary political changes as the markets became widely adopted.

The AMIX platform was accessed via dial-up and client PC software written in C. ^[1] The project originated long before the widespread deployment of the Internet, so the challenge of creating the market was compounded by the technical difficulty of creating the network on which it would run. ^[4] AMIX developed the early mechanics of reputation systems, payment processing, online dispute resolution, as well smart contracts. ^{[13] [14]}

AMIX had markets for information in primarily technical or business-related fields: on products, technologies, companies and industries, market research reports, and software (including shareware). Services offered included consulting, editing, writing, and information brokering. Each product offered was priced between $1 and $500, and consulting engagements could be made for amounts up to $2000. ^[1] AMIX would take a 30% intermediation fee, but did not prohibit private sales. ^[15]

AMIX shared office space with Xanadu, both part of Autodesk. ^[13] Autodesk acquired 80% of the company in 1988 ^[11] and funded it until shortly after Phil Salin died in December 1991. ^[15] Among early adopters, the computer industry itself became the source of many early markets such as a network for the exchange of libraries of object-oriented computer code. AMIX left Autodesk and cut staff in August/September 1992 ^{[16] [17]} and later closed its doors.

References

1. "Introduction -- /AMIX". W3. 22 January 1992.
2. Orr, Joel N., Dr. "Join the information economy. (American Information Exchange online information service is the brainchile[sic] of Phil Salin)" Apr. 1992 Computer Aided Engineering, v11, n4, p. 84; DialogWeb copy pp. 1-3.
3. "At your service". The Economist. 26 August 1999.
4. "Salon Technology | For your information". Salon . 3 August 1999. Archived from the original on 22 November 1999. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
5. Epstein, Jim (7 October 2020). "Before the Web: The 1980s Dream of a Free and Borderless Virtual World". Reason.
6. Seibel, Peter (21 December 2009). Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming. Apress. p. 95. ISBN   978-1-4302-1949-1. Morningstar and Randy Farmer left Lucasfilm to start a company called the American Information Exchange -- Douglas Crockford
7. Wallis, Alistair (12 October 2006). "Playing Catch Up: Habitat 's Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer". Gamasutra.
8. Tribble, Dean (6 October 2020). "I also want to credit @frandallfarmer : together we designed the smart contract state machine to realize Phil's vision for Amix!". Twitter.
9. Mark Gimein (August 27, 1999). "Jay Walker's patent mania". Salon . Retrieved 2020-12-09. The original idea of selling information on an electronic marketplace was tried first by an economist named Phil Salin.
10. Lewin, Peter (July 2018). "Ludwig Lachmann – Enigmatic and Controversial Austrian Economist". Online Library of Liberty. Liberty Fund.
11. "RELease 1.0: Making markets - American Information Exchange and InterImpulse create a need and fill it - Tutorial". RELease 1.0. 14 July 1990. Archived from the original on 24 February 2006.
12. Poole, Robert. "In Memoriam: Phillip K. Salin". Reason.
13. Garcia, Chris (4 February 2019). "Oral Historyof Chip Morningstar" (PDF). Computer History Museum. pp. 20–21.
14. Miller, Mark. "AMIX: The American Information Exchange". www.erights.org.
15. "Phil Salin and AMIX - American Information Exchange". RELease 1.0. 26 December 1991. Archived from the original on 11 October 2008.
16. "AMIX anticipated growth fuels move to new quarters", Newsbytes, (Aug. 3, 1992)
17. Jonathan Weisman, "AMIX Cuts Staff in the Wake of Leaving Parent Company", The Business Journal--San Jose, Sep. 7, 1992.

• "The market - electronic online market", RELease 1.0, June 21, 1993