A market can look smaller when its transactions are hard to classify. On March 15, 2018, the Bureau of Economic Analysis published preliminary estimates putting goods and services it considered primarily digital at $1.2 trillion, or 6.5% of U.S. GDP, in 2016. The agency’s category spanned network infrastructure, e-commerce transactions and digital media, from software and telecom services to streaming subscriptions. [shared-192d4c5eaff8a09e5b0c5e594714f3f6d2f9b29b79c5ab05cfb2e318cc98c753]
BEA estimated that this part of the economy grew an average 5.6% a year from 2006 to 2016, against 1.5% for the U.S. economy overall. That comparison describes a measured category, not every business using digital tools. Because available data were limited, the initial estimates excluded some partly digital activity, including peer-to-peer commerce. [shared-192d4c5eaff8a09e5b0c5e594714f3f6d2f9b29b79c5ab05cfb2e318cc98c753]
The boundary matters for competition: a count that misses activity can understate the reach of newer business models, while a broad label can blur differences between infrastructure providers, platforms and sellers. The release does not show how much the excluded activity would add, or whether any firm gained market power. BEA described the figures as a first step toward a digital-economy satellite account. A fuller account would sharpen comparisons; it would not, by itself, establish that consumers had better choices or lower costs. [shared-192d4c5eaff8a09e5b0c5e594714f3f6d2f9b29b79c5ab05cfb2e318cc98c753]