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You became a sharecropper. This is because you no longer own your relationship to your customer. Sharecropping works but over time, you lose any leverage in t

You became a sharecropper. This is because you no longer own your relationship to your customer. Sharecropping works but over time, you lose any leverage in the situation. You need them but they don't need you. The end game doesn't involve anything good for you. I work with many online stores that are switching from the sharecropper model after seeing the end game. They now have their own shops. This, too, can be tainted by the big tech companies controlling access to customers but it's quite a bit safer. Repeat customers don't need to come again through the big channels and are often the real lifeblood of a retail business.

AussieWog93 6y ago
I don't disagree that relying on a third-party platform for the majority of your income comes with risks (see the Adpocalypse on YouTube), but I think you've made a few assumptions about my business that aren't 100% true. Regardless, owning your own shop doesn't magically solve all of your problems. You still need to bring customers in, be that through PR (which takes time), or advertising (which costs money).
- throwaway13337 6y ago
  I didn't mean to make an overly broad assumption about your business. I'm sorry if I did. There are indeed ways to combat the platform's influence within it like strong product branding and differentiation backed by a legal monopoly. What I'm really after here is to say that all those tools that the platforms give you come at a very high cost. My point was that platforms are indeed hurting small businesses. We are now forced into a kind of surfdom. That's not a great future.
  - AussieWog93 6y ago
    All good man, no offense taken. Your point about the platforms having too much power is right, but I don't think it's reached the level of full-on serfdom - at least not in e-commerce. Sure, eBay/Amazon take a 10-15% cut of the sales, and this is arguably excessive, but they make it possible for product designers to sell their products direct to consumers on a large scale. Before they existed, the only way to reach a broad audience was through a hierarchy of retailers/wholesalers that might end up taking 70% of the final sale price. It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than it was.
specialist 6y ago
re sharecropper Usury, debt bondage, gig economy, aggregators. I think about this all the time. The last stage capitalism flavored critiques hold no weight for me. I don't even understand what they're saying. I want to hear about restoring and nurturing entrepreneurship, financing for cooperatives, fair profit sharing arrangements, community banking. How did the Progressives and Good Government reformers talk about these issues leading up to The New Deal? I've been reading about those movements, but haven't gotten very far. David Graeber and Clay Shirky make sense to me. Recommendations, please.

AussieWog93 6y ago

I don't disagree that relying on a third-party platform for the majority of your income comes with risks (see the Adpocalypse on YouTube), but I think you've made a few assumptions about my business that aren't 100% true. Regardless, owning your own shop doesn't magically solve all of your problems. You still need to bring customers in, be that through PR (which takes time), or advertising (which costs money).

throwaway13337 6y ago
I didn't mean to make an overly broad assumption about your business. I'm sorry if I did. There are indeed ways to combat the platform's influence within it like strong product branding and differentiation backed by a legal monopoly. What I'm really after here is to say that all those tools that the platforms give you come at a very high cost. My point was that platforms are indeed hurting small businesses. We are now forced into a kind of surfdom. That's not a great future.
- AussieWog93 6y ago
  All good man, no offense taken. Your point about the platforms having too much power is right, but I don't think it's reached the level of full-on serfdom - at least not in e-commerce. Sure, eBay/Amazon take a 10-15% cut of the sales, and this is arguably excessive, but they make it possible for product designers to sell their products direct to consumers on a large scale. Before they existed, the only way to reach a broad audience was through a hierarchy of retailers/wholesalers that might end up taking 70% of the final sale price. It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than it was.

specialist 6y ago

re sharecropper Usury, debt bondage, gig economy, aggregators. I think about this all the time. The last stage capitalism flavored critiques hold no weight for me. I don't even understand what they're saying. I want to hear about restoring and nurturing entrepreneurship, financing for cooperatives, fair profit sharing arrangements, community banking. How did the Progressives and Good Government reformers talk about these issues leading up to The New Deal? I've been reading about those movements, but haven't gotten very far. David Graeber and Clay Shirky make sense to me. Recommendations, please.