Beth Krasna writes about the impact of the direct economy on our society.

the elimination of intermediaries and the sucking in […] of the customer into the production/value chain […] entails a transfer of know-how from the producers to the consumers.

So as we democratize innovation, and transfer all this know-how to users/customers, we are going to create a two speed society, between those who can handle the technology, and those who can’t. The perverse effect being that those who can least afford to pay will be charged more as they will need to purchase service/help along with the products.

Thinking Ethics: Direct Economy

Sellers are increasingly counting on people’s growing capacities to lower their prices, outsourcing time consuming tasks to the customer. It should be a universally good news, but will it accentuate the divide between those able to participate in this direct economy, and those who can’t, for educational, economical or cultural reasons?

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 4th, 2007 at 5:48 pm and is filed under society, english. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.