New Perspectives-Chapter 9
Chapter 9 of New Perspectives is about the various forms of ecommerce on the web, including B2C, C2C, B2B and C2B, as well as the pros and cons of digital wallets, subscriptions and bidding. Online commerce is a big staple of the web, with these days the service industry playing a part in that.
Amazon is the biggest example of this online. Many of the things I own,
including the laptop I’m typing on right now, are products purchased from
Amazon. I can remember asking my Dad to order something on Etsy when I was
young, though it never came. My sister once got a dollhouse from there that
took over a month to arrive. I don’t think I’ve used eBay much in my own life,
however. I didn’t even know it was meant to be an auctioning site. I know it
used to be talked about a lot though.
I might try out Upwork. I’ve been thinking about getting some extra change by doing contract work and was thinking about LinkedIn, Craigslist and GitHub. I have a LinkedIn account but something I’m not exactly a fan of is the environment there. It feels very hustle culture-y with the amount of AI posts there are as well. From what the book describes, Upwork seems interesting.
Something I find interesting is that the book doesn’t mention the gig economy as much as it could. It didn’t get as big as it did until around 2019-2020s I think. The idea of renting out someone’s service is a good one, but unfortunately, it’s very exploitative the way it operates. It would be nice if the drivers or delivery people took most of the money, being that they’re the ones conducting the service (driving, delivery, etc.) and the company was the one who took only 10% of that money. I don’t believe it would hurt their business model very much at all.