Intermediaries on the Internet

Another post by Cory Doctorow about how good platforms go bad and, by extension, how the internet goes bad:

Intermediation

Why didn't the internet, as promised, "disintermediate the world"? Because in many situations we NEED "middlemen." Doctorow cites publishing as an example. While some authors self-publish and accomplish all the steps of the process themselves or directly pay others to do them (such as cover artists and freelance editors), most of us prefer to have someone else handle those tasks. And even the totally independent self-publishers typically need platforms such as Amazon, Draft2Digital, etc. to sell their work; very few earn money solely by hand-selling their books one by one, like the eccentric wordsmith Doctorow describes in his essay.

"The internet did disintermediate a hell of a lot of intermediaries –- that is, 'middlemen' –- but then it created a bunch more of these middlemen, who coalesced into a handful of gatekeepers." The gatekeepers, as he sees it, are the problem. Online sales of almost anything we might want or need on a single, convenient website is a service most customers value. The problem arises when a giant internet retailer locks out its competitors and/or restricts what customers and third-party sellers can do with the products. We don't hate intermediaries as such, according to Doctorow; we hate "powerful intermediaries." His solution -- for governments to enforce competition-supportive laws.

While I can't deny monopolies are generally a bad thing, except in public service spheres such as utilities and roads, I also highly value the convenience of being able to buy almost anything from Amazon, a website that remembers my address, past purchases, and payment methods and that has been reliably trustworthy with that information so far, as well as fast and efficient. Moreover, I like the capacity to sell my self-published e-books on a site that most potential readers probably use regularly. I love knowing I can find almost any book ever published, a cherished fantasy of mine in my pre-internet childhood and youth. I'd have a hard time getting along without Amazon if it vanished. Yet doubtless the abuses of which Doctorow accuses it are real, too.

As for one area in which powerful middlemen exploit their near-monopoly to perpetrate blatant ripoffs: In the Maryland General Assembly's current session, they're considering a law to forbid companies such as Ticketmaster from buying up most of the tickets for a high-demand event and reselling them at extortionate prices, among other protective measures:

Ticket-Scalping Bill

Despite such abuses, I endorse Doctorow's conclusion that, overall, "A world with intermediaries is a better world." In past centuries, people "in trade," who at first glance seem to add no value to products they profit from through their own middleman activities, used to be scorned by the upper class and regarded with suspicion by their customers. (We encounter the stereotype of the cheating miller in Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES.) But what would we do without them?

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.