Moreover, the high cost of the capital equipment required to produce ships implies that the capital costs per ship will be increased significantly by unutilized capacity. If the market analogy is used to specify intelligent information agents and the ways in which they acquire and exchange information, then the appropriate approach is to have these agents buying and selling information. Durability in this case will mean something like the length of time over which the information is of current interest. The value of information will change slowly in the case of on-line or digital libraries but continually in the case of information about share prices. The former is highly durable and the latter highly perishable.
Information is inherently non-standard.
If one item of information were like any other, having obtained one the buyer would have obtained all. Brokers on the stock exchanges, shipping brokers, insurance agents, travel agents, etc. are all specialists in the acquisition and use of information. They maintain lines of communication to sellers of relevant services. They can make a profit because their costs in acquiring and passing on information are less on average for each transaction than the costs would be to each of their own customers and suppliers trying to engage in direct exchange. The general point here is that the buyers and sellers are interested only in their costs of engaging in the transactions.