Communication Breakdown and The Marginalized Consumer

Join the Emergence for a commentary on The Marginalized Consumer and how the profit motive in the building of communication tools is fracturing the free market.

In this episode, the question is asked if communication technology is responsible for inquiry and feedback between consumers and providers, is it healthy for society when the tools for communication are built for the profit of the provider of the tools over the interests of the people using the tools. Where people who are consumers, employees, managers, executives, owners of businesses, and representatives of government are influenced by how these tools engage their interests around information, goods, and services.

When this exchange is created and managed by companies for profit, wouldn’t it stand to reason the tools would be built to benefit the bottom line of the provider of the tools rather than the people using the tools? Wouldn’t this result in a framework of communication threaded throughout society optimized for a profit motive over a people motive? Is this healthy for society?

What if quality of engagement was at the heart of communication tools built in the future funded by philanthropic sources focused on building open source, non exclusive communication tools optimized for a return on interaction over a return on investment? What is possible when consumer and stakeholder engagement around information, goods, and services were moved from the periphery as being driven by the market to being drivers of the market?

Listen to this episode to learn more.