Consequences

This is a (very much) incomplete and unedited list of the possible consequences (both good and bad) of adopting offerbots – 13 May 2020

  • Efficiency in marketing (inefficiency is opportunity)
  • Developed economies are entralisiation
  • The best employment is from making big companies bigger
  • Shift to ownership of scarce resources?
  • Stock markets and investment

Diversity

Individual control -> Diversity in our economy, society and information (compared to aggregators’ feedback loops based on a single heuristic).

Real markets will distribute opportunity

Not winner-take-all markets any more

Loss of opportunity

While offerbots would increase the opportunity to buy and sell, they will reduce opportunity in other sectors.

The inefficiency suffered by other people is my opportunity to sell products or services to them

Offerbots will increase the opportunity to buy and sell, but reduce the opportunity to act as (or work for) an aggregator, intermediary.

This may make the economy tend to be the owners of capital (whether physical resources, or human capital in the form of skills) and reduce the number of roles available for people with little capital.

This is already happening, of course, and doing nothing will strip the profitability from every sector (as aggregators will take it all without employing many people to share the wealth).