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The Era of Marketplaces: Should eCommerce Platforms Exist?
Marketplaces connect buyers and sellers and facilitate transactions and the transfer of goods. Some popular online marketplaces include Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, and Alibaba.
Online marketplaces have become both a convenience and a necessity in our hectic lives. In some sectors, marketplaces dominate the market, existentially threatening brick-and-mortar stores.
However, marketplaces also introduce new challenges and risks, raising the question of whether they should even exist.
Most Americans are familiar with garage sales, and roadside stands that help owners dispose of excess items or even make a small profit.
However, this method limits the type of goods that can be sold, their volume, or the number of potential customers that can be reached.
While some marketplaces are specialized for the sale of certain goods, most allow traders to sell almost any type of goods. Such marketplaces organize goods in categories, allowing customers to find and filter goods using various criteria.
Some marketplaces employ advanced algorithms capable of recommending items based on visitors’ behavior and interests.
The advantage of marketplaces is that someone does not have to drive miles away to search for items they need.
Additionally, they bridge the information gap between buyers and sellers, for example, by providing technical information about a product in a way that the consumer can understand.
Unfortunately, most marketplaces snowball rapidly, making them impossible to monitor and regulate, thus becoming a haven for malevolent actors.
For example, scammers post counterfeit, substandard, harmful, or even inexistent items, while others trick potential customers into paying in advance for goods that don’t exist or ones that they will never receive.
Similarly, there is the emergence of illegal underground marketplaces for the sale of illegal substances, stolen firearms, hiring killers, swatting, and human trafficking, among others.
Whether marketplaces should exist depends on their purpose. For example, governments should do everything to shut down marketplaces involved in illegal activities, those without proper moderation, and those that allow illegal activity.
The existence of some marketplaces should also be considered from a patriotic standpoint.
For example, some marketplaces undermine American manufacturers and sellers, skewing international trade in favor of foreign countries.
Dependence on such marketplaces poses risks to the supply chain and national security because they are heavily controlled by hostile foreign governments.
While the government may not have justifiable reasons to ban such marketplaces, buyers should opt for local alternatives whenever possible.
Similarly, buying offline is preferable because it helps build personal relationships and reduces dependency on technology, which can be disrupted or manipulated with a single click.
The line between illegal and legitimate marketplaces is very blurry. Despite best efforts to regulate activity on established marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay, elaborate scams still exist.
Similarly, shutting down illegal marketplaces operating in the digital shadows is almost impossible.
Subsequently, the decision to buy on a particular marketplace or seller depends on the buyer’s discretion.
However, regulators should ensure that marketplaces observe specific basic guidelines, such as buyer protection and removal of harmful or illicit products.
As Conservatives, which marketplaces should we support and/or avoid?
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