Meltem Şendağ
INTERCHANGE/EXCHANGE VIA DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND PLATFORMS
Interchange/exchange, or in other words ‘give’ and ‘take’, has been central to life, but history demonstrates that these concepts will never get old and continue to reform themselves. (1) The form of interchange/exchange, or what form it should be in, is an issue that touches upon all aspects of life, and can be traced as a fundamental aspect of human nature. If we were to take a quick look at the much familiar history narrative, we see that money was invented to facilitate interchange/exchange between people. At one point, currency, as the unit of exchange, was standardized and became the cornerstone of a system built on debt, which could only be produced by states and banks. The economic narrative that was created around it constantly indoctrinates us with the benefits of economic growth and culture of consumption. It keeps on repeating that ‘self-interest’ lies at the heart of human nature, and defines humans as ‘selfish creatures, focused on maximizing their profit’. This mentality consecrates a competitive and materialist society and defines that as rational.
I don’t know whether people are self-centered, or whether there is a clear answer to that question. Perhaps, we are shaped according to the structures, systems and, most of all, the stories that surround us. In today’s world, technology and digital platforms are increasingly more apparent in the stories we hear or are a part of.
In this article, I will be talking about my observations on how digital platforms (web 2.0 and web 3.0) triggered a transformation of mentality and exchange/value perception based on my experiences and research. I will start by using the example of Zumbara Zaman Kumbarası [Zumbara: Time Piggy Bank] system -which I have founded with my colleagues- to move the discussion into a more practical realm:
Zumbara was a social network where people shared their knowledge, skills, talents, and experiences by using time instead of money. For example: Ayşe tells me how to make ecological detergents for 2 hours, in return I pay Ayşe 2 hours from my time piggy bank. Ayşe receives help to 'draft a CV' from Mehmet by paying 1 hour, and makes Basri repair the electrical system in her house with the other 1 hour... More than 50 thousand people became members of this system and shared thousands of hours.
Although social impact in these types of systems is not easy to evaluate beyond numbers, most of the feedback we received centered around ‘trust’, ‘sense of belonging’, and ‘discovering my own skills’. At the beginning, we had received certain warnings as to ‘why the system would not work’. These were mostly based on commonplace stories related to today’s system and people’s perceptions of the system, such as, people’s lack of trust for each other, or people’s tendency to receive services but not return them. But we’ve seen that when there are appropriate structures in place, we all carry the potential to dedicate our labor towards a system we believe in and to each other. We grow richer by sharing our skills with each other. We can form healthy relationships and societies by trusting each other. (2)
Zumbara is an example of web 2.0 with the social network it has created. Web 2.0 is the foundation of many of the sharing economy models whose content is created by its users. Examples that are popular in Turkey and worldwide include: Airbnb and Couchsurfing that allow for sharing accommodation among individuals; Askıda ne var and İhtiyac Haritası that allow for sharing of resources; Letgo and Dolap that allow for secondhand clothes sharing; Blabla Car, Martı, GO sharing that allow for sharing vehicles. Abroad, Zopa is a peer-to-peer lending company.
With web 2.0, individuals can express themselves in different ways (3), they produce content, form communities that share common interests, or form public opinion. Sharing economy transforms the concept of ownership. Hotel chains, or centralized constructs, are now replaced by Airbnb, whose content is created by thousands of its users. Through their form of participation, all of these allow individuals to create income and respect, and open the doors of creating trust between people. We could say that they are creating new forms of exchanging information, accessing an institution/official and organizing.
I talked about the transformation centralized constructs have gone through. But web 2.0 companies that started as start-ups have also turned into centralized mechanisms due to the incredible amount of data they own, and for not involving their users in decision making mechanisms. I would like to talk about web 3.0 to explore further possibilities in this respect.
Web 3.0 enables creating decentralized connections without intermediaries. Instead of running applications on a single server and storing data in a single database -that is, centralized mechanisms and authorities-, developers in web 3.0 develop and store them in blockchains managed by everyone who creates the network. Thus, data is not collected in one place. Blockchain uses a smart contracts mechanism for interchange/exchange to sustain the trust in and endorsement of the system.
Blockchain technology became popular via cryptocurrencies. The first of them all was Bitcoin. It is a pioneer of a great transformation - one that involves producing money and its adoption by the people, outside the control of the states and banks. Blockchain technology, on which Bitcoin is built, is predicted to change the way we interact and do business in the coming years.
I would like to give a simple and commonly used example. There are barriers to money circulation in the world. Since banks are for profit institutions, they give out loans from that perspective, and end up making money. That’s why money is never in the hands of those that really need it. Moreover, sending money is quite costly and international money transfers can take days. With blockchain technology, all these barriers can be removed. Sending any amount of money is soon likely to be as simple as sending a WhatsApp text anywhere in the world.
You can think of the midpoint in figure (A) above as institutions such as banks (or states, etc.) that serve as intermediary institutions between the two people. It seems that it will be more and more possible for people to interact with each other directly or through other organizations in decentralized (B) and distributed (C) network structures. This, of course, means more comfortable circulation for much less cost. In other words, I will be able to sell my production in Turkey to buyers across the borders without incurring high costs, or as a business, I will not have to pay high costs for payments that I accept with a credit card, or that I will be able to get a more convenient and less costly loan when starting a new business, which means I have more possibilities to make my dreams come true.
The path paved by the popularity of Bitcoin and blockchain technology enabled various communities to establish and organize their own economies by creating their own community cryptocurrencies for the purposes they want to achieve, which are called decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO in short). It is possible to find various DAOs organized around the arts, but here I would like to give an example I have recently come across: ConstitutionDAO.
ConstitutionDAO was organized to buy one of the oldest copies of the Constitution of the USA auctioned at Sotheby's. Sotheby’s is an American multinational company in Great Britain and one of the biggest decorative arts, jewelry, and collections brokers in the world. ConstitutionDAO was able to raise more than 47 million USD with the participation of 17 thousand people. I believe it is a striking example of the opportunities that the web 3.0 technology can provide, including but not limited to: how many people it could organize around a single goal (different DAOs come together for different objectives), how much money it could raise in so little time, and how the constituents of the DAO decided together as to what to do with the money when the DAO, unfortunately, could not win the auction (4)
I tried to sum up each subject to the extent possible. Within the context of digital platforms, there are many other examples and stories that could have been mentioned in addition to those I have. Technology is deeply entrenched in our lives and seems like not only it will transform us but also the way we live. I am sure concepts of money and interchange/exchange will also be affected by this transformation. I am sure all of us hear many stories about technology. The world can change if the stories we hear change. No matter your discipline, I hope you get to hear and be part of more stories about cooperation, trust and discovering your own gift.
(1) Marcel Mauss says that in some ancient languages there was no distinction between the words give and take. The fact that we are describing these forms of change in different words today could be the subject of another article.
(2) For more information on Zumbara click here.
(3) See (link in Turkish): https://www.evrensel.net/haber/420408/tiktok-isci-sinifina-bahsetmedigimiz-kendini-insa-etme-alani
(4) Click on this link for more information.