Buyers and Sellers

 

The Bug

Sometimes you're the windshield
Sometimes you're the bug
Sometimes it all comes together, babe
Sometimes you're a fool in love
Sometimes you're the Louisville slugger, babe
Sometimes you're the ball
Sometimes it all comes together, babe
Sometimes you're gonna lose it all, yeah

There is a problem when one party thinks they’re the windshield and the other is the bug,
 but the other party thinks the reverse is true.

Twitter serves as a public town square. Its Tweets are free to post and read. However the Twitter infrastructure is not free. Twitter sells the information about its users to advertisers and that pays for the infrastructure. The users of Twitter have one perspective, while Twitter itself has another perspective.

A town square is a public place. But there are laws, rules, and customs governing public spaces. Speakers are  expected to not speak over each other. Speakers are supposed to state opinions, not false facts. People are not supposed to defame or harm others. Twitter's moderators and terms of service function much the same way. If there is no moderation or rules, then there will probably be no users. If there are no users, then there is no information to sell to advertisers. If there is nothing to sell, then the infrastructure is not provided, Then there is no private version of that public town square.

In economics, goods are classified by two dimensions: 1) priced and unpriced, and 2) exclusive and non-exclusive (if I sell it to you, I can not sell it to another.). From the perspective of the Twitter users, the good is unpriced and nonexclusive. From the perspective of Twitter and its advertisers, it is priced and nonexclusive. And that is the confusion. Twitter is not unpriced. Just like a broadcast “free” TV show is not free, it is paid for by its advertisers. It is “free”, but it is not unpriced.

This may also be the problem with the tickets fiasco for Taylor Swift tickets. From Taylor Swift’s, and her fans', perspective, the concert is non-exclusive. One fan’s attendance does not mean another fan can not hear the same concert. From the perspective of Ticketmaster, and the venue operators, the seats are exclusive. However those same seats without Taylor’s music are just seats. When the buyer thinks the good is non-exclusive and the seller thinks it is exclusive, there are also problems.

When both parties are the windshield, or both parties are the bug, then there is no problem. When one party is the windshield and the other is the bug, then there are problems.