What if we had a democratic, capitalistic online marketplace?
| dc.contributor.author | Vogt, Joël | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-04-09T10:58:41Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-04-09T10:58:41Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2020 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Can consumer ownership schemes provide a more democratic financing mechanism for the online marketplace? When it comes to being successful as an online platform, size matters. The network effect, which tells us that the value of a platform increases exponentially as a function of the user base, creates a natural concentration of power, if you’re a vendor trying to sell or advertise products, you will pick the platform with the largest audience. The network effect also creates an exit barrier, as moving to a competing platform without the same reach and user base means fewer potential customers. The consumer ownership scheme that I will be focusing on is the Consumer Stock Ownership Plan pioneered by Louis Kelso. The CSOP is a method of corporate finance that enables consumers to buy an ownership interest in a company on which they heavily rely. It is a democratic capitalistic tool to mitigate the harm caused monopolies or oligopolies. A CSOP does not require consumers to buy the company’s shares in the stock market. Instead, the company acquires its shares in a trust on behalf of consumers and uses dividends to amortise the investment. Shares that are fully amortised are transferred to their owners. In this essay, I make the case that CSOP financing for online marketplaces makes sense for three reasons. A CSOP does not discriminate against those who lack the capital to acquire shares in the first place; | en |
| dc.identifier.doi | 10.1007/s00287-020-01244-9 | |
| dc.identifier.pissn | 0170-6012 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://dl.gi.de/handle/20.500.12116/31969 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Springer Verlag | |
| dc.relation.ispartof | Informatik Spektrum: Vol. 43, No. 1 | |
| dc.title | What if we had a democratic, capitalistic online marketplace? | en |
| dc.type | Text/Journal Article | |
| gi.citation.endPage | 27 | |
| gi.citation.publisherPlace | Berlin Heidelberg | |
| gi.citation.startPage | 23 | |
| gi.conference.sessiontitle | Hauptbeitrag |