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>> The second, and less discussed, requirement is for the two parties that should trade to be aware of one another’s goods or services. >> Fortunately, the ris

>> The second, and less discussed, requirement is for the two parties that should trade to be aware of one another’s goods or services. >> Fortunately, the rise of the Internet, and specifically Internet marketplace models, act as accelerants to the productivity benefits of the division of labour AND comparative advantage by reducing information asymmetry and increasing the likelihood of a perfect match with regard to the exchange of goods or services. That is false. Maybe it was the case at the beginning, but now with a small number of big gatekeepers like Google, Amazon and Facebook, the internet actually increases information asymmetry. Mostly by concentrating user attention to a small number of companies/products and thereby encouraging herd mentality and distracting users away from real value which would make their lives better.

holoduke 8y ago
They basically represent sperate countries. Without any anti monopoly rules and other regulations we have constructed last 400 years to make the business landscape a healthy one. It's sad to see these giants taking over entire markets and collect insane cuts
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- edmundsauto 8y ago
  Another perspective is that they created those markets, so this is a way to recoup that (heavily risky) investment. They survived and are collecting the spoils of a million failed marketplaces.
soared 8y ago
What? That makes literally no sense at all. The author is comparing a world with the internet to one without. Attention is nowhere near concentrated on a small number of products. Google, facebook, and amazon are ALL networks that connect users to info. Not a single one of those is a product or is even capable of 'herding' attention.
- ben_w 8y ago
  > Google, facebook, and amazon are ALL networks that connect users to info. Not a single one of those is a product or is even capable of 'herding' attention. They connect users to info by herding them. Google has, what, 25 billion indexed pages? I don’t get those at random when I search. Likewise, I don’t see a random subset of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users or Amazon’s >12 million products. I don’t even see a complete list of my friends’ posts on Facebook; it thinks it knows better and herds me (and everyone else). I don’t even see the same thing as other users searching for the same keywords: Googling “mouse” in a normal window gives me the computer peripheral, doing the same in an incognito window gives me the animal. Herding people based on what it thinks you want, but easily corruptible if desired. On Google, some keywords bring up an alert saying some results were hidden because of copyright claims, giving me links to (IIRC) chillingEffect.org, which is a fairly on-the-nose kind of herding.
matt4077 8y ago
Today, I can find a supplier for any widget I can think of on Alibaba. This wasn't possible in the 80s and 90s. I personally know someone who got rich buying toys in china and selling them in Europe. His business failed around 10 years ago, because his customers started buying direct. That's the sort of "information" the article has in mind. Google's or Facebook's vast tracking of online behaviour is, well, really big. But it has very little relevance to the supply chain.

holoduke 8y ago

They basically represent sperate countries. Without any anti monopoly rules and other regulations we have constructed last 400 years to make the business landscape a healthy one. It's sad to see these giants taking over entire markets and collect insane cuts

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
edmundsauto 8y ago
Another perspective is that they created those markets, so this is a way to recoup that (heavily risky) investment. They survived and are collecting the spoils of a million failed marketplaces.

soared 8y ago

What? That makes literally no sense at all. The author is comparing a world with the internet to one without. Attention is nowhere near concentrated on a small number of products. Google, facebook, and amazon are ALL networks that connect users to info. Not a single one of those is a product or is even capable of 'herding' attention.

ben_w 8y ago
> Google, facebook, and amazon are ALL networks that connect users to info. Not a single one of those is a product or is even capable of 'herding' attention. They connect users to info by herding them. Google has, what, 25 billion indexed pages? I don’t get those at random when I search. Likewise, I don’t see a random subset of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users or Amazon’s >12 million products. I don’t even see a complete list of my friends’ posts on Facebook; it thinks it knows better and herds me (and everyone else). I don’t even see the same thing as other users searching for the same keywords: Googling “mouse” in a normal window gives me the computer peripheral, doing the same in an incognito window gives me the animal. Herding people based on what it thinks you want, but easily corruptible if desired. On Google, some keywords bring up an alert saying some results were hidden because of copyright claims, giving me links to (IIRC) chillingEffect.org, which is a fairly on-the-nose kind of herding.

matt4077 8y ago

Today, I can find a supplier for any widget I can think of on Alibaba. This wasn't possible in the 80s and 90s. I personally know someone who got rich buying toys in china and selling them in Europe. His business failed around 10 years ago, because his customers started buying direct. That's the sort of "information" the article has in mind. Google's or Facebook's vast tracking of online behaviour is, well, really big. But it has very little relevance to the supply chain.