Trading Sites: The Individual As A Company
Sunday, October 4, 2009 by adonohue26
A significant amount has been written about how information technology has led to companies and corporations offering individual, personalised services and products. On the other hand, though, I think information technology has resulted in individuals acting like companies.
In particular, sites like Trade Me, Ebay and Craigslist allow the capitalist system to be reproduced on a micro scale. With a minimum of effort anyone can sell a wide variety of goods or services to anyone willing to buy them.
It could be argued that trading sites lead people to interact with each other to a greater extent than would normally be the case with traditional retail systems. However, the automated messaging systems most sites offer allow trades to be detached and impersonal. Trade Me, for example, has features that allow payment details and shipping addresses to be automatically exchanged. Thus, in my experience, it is quite common for TradeMe users to buy, pay for and receive goods without ever actually contacting the seller.
Indeed, trading sites may have an anti-community effect in general. Whereas previously people might have left furniture by the side of the road for anyone to claim, or donated old books to a charity shop, there is now the temptation to try and sell used goods online, even if it is only for a small amount of money. This could very well have detrimental effects. Unofficial economies that rely on salvaging and re-using discarded goods (such as Freegans) are weakened, as are the charities and organisations that second-hand stores traditionally support.
The notion of surplus value is also very relevant to trading sites. While users may believe they are economically empowering themselves by trading unwanted goods for some extra money, they are still supplying the large companies that run trading sites with an audience for advertisements. Furthermore, the listing/success fees that most sites charge mean that individual financial success automatically benefits the owner of the trading site as well. So while trading sites allow some economic freedom on a small scale, they offer little freedom from the wider capitalist system.
In particular, sites like Trade Me, Ebay and Craigslist allow the capitalist system to be reproduced on a micro scale. With a minimum of effort anyone can sell a wide variety of goods or services to anyone willing to buy them.
It could be argued that trading sites lead people to interact with each other to a greater extent than would normally be the case with traditional retail systems. However, the automated messaging systems most sites offer allow trades to be detached and impersonal. Trade Me, for example, has features that allow payment details and shipping addresses to be automatically exchanged. Thus, in my experience, it is quite common for TradeMe users to buy, pay for and receive goods without ever actually contacting the seller.
Indeed, trading sites may have an anti-community effect in general. Whereas previously people might have left furniture by the side of the road for anyone to claim, or donated old books to a charity shop, there is now the temptation to try and sell used goods online, even if it is only for a small amount of money. This could very well have detrimental effects. Unofficial economies that rely on salvaging and re-using discarded goods (such as Freegans) are weakened, as are the charities and organisations that second-hand stores traditionally support.
The notion of surplus value is also very relevant to trading sites. While users may believe they are economically empowering themselves by trading unwanted goods for some extra money, they are still supplying the large companies that run trading sites with an audience for advertisements. Furthermore, the listing/success fees that most sites charge mean that individual financial success automatically benefits the owner of the trading site as well. So while trading sites allow some economic freedom on a small scale, they offer little freedom from the wider capitalist system.