The Gift Economy & Internet Karma

I thought Frances Grimble's comment about the way in which the Gift Economy has been adopted online but recently stretched beyond all recognition by mega-social nets is really insightful.  Here's a snippet : "But the Internet, and Internet-related businesses, have exploited this economy to the extent of breaking it down. E-groups consisting of hundreds or thousands of people are described as communities, but most of the members remain relative strangers, and membership is often anonymous or pseudonymous. So what happens is, a handful of people repeatedly supply the relatively higher quality of free information. Everyone else enjoys it with no sense that any return is ever required. There’s an assumption of a kind of Internet karma—no one feels obligated to return a favor because the person providing it will probably somehow, someday get some kind of return from someone else entirely. And, Internet companies where the users are providing the information/favors/freebies—Google et al—are doing their best to exploit any remaining feeling of obligation by taking the credit for what the users give away (or what they sell and parties like Google have appropriated) and transferring that obligation to their companies." Read it all here.

Comments

[Vee Sweeney]

In all my years, I have never seen anyone bring this up, even though I think most people think about it every single day. Giving and giving back is the essential core of building an online community, no matter what purpose that online community may have. However, there does come a point where people and companies wake up one day and forget about the favors people did for them in order to make their success.

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Vee, yes it's an interesting subject isn't it. For marketing companies looking to work in conversational media it's a tricky one because it's so different from the traditional approach.