Intrinsitivity

Social networking comprises the heart of Web 2.0, a phenomenon whose socioeconomic center is something called The Long Tail. For businesses like Amazon and eBay, The Long Tail promises prodigious profits via the sale of products and services that traditional brick-and-mortar stores like Wal-Mart and Target cannot carry due to practical considerations, like shelf space and findability. The Internet makes it possible to instantaneously personalize information to the nth degree.

The Long Tail essentially promises to turn any willing consumer into a sole proprietorship, since any consumer now has the ability to dive deep into a market niche and pull out unique and traditionally low-demand products and services that make money in small batches via broad distribution channels. What interests me about all of this is the long-term effects of this emerging consumer-proprietor duality. To be brief, if anyone can cheaply and easily become a buyer and a seller, does this sort of socioeconomic equalization strengthen or weaken Adam Smith’s invisible hand? Can capitalism survive Web 2.0?