For about the last two and a half years I have worked as a retail salesman for Best Buy. My area of expertise is Home Theater. If you have a question about surround sound, plasma TV’s, audio amplifiers and whatever else, which pertains to home theater, I’m the guy to ask. Usually when I am asked a perplexing question regarding home theater connections and troubleshoots, I have an answer or a plausible solution. But when a very intricate question is asked and I don’t know the answer, I’ll turn to a particular gift economy found only on the internet.
Before I begin explaining my particular uses of a gift economy, let me explain what a gift economy is according to Peter Kollock of the University of California. Kollock labels a gift economy as an economy where “help and information is offered without the expectation of any direct, immediate quid-pro-quo.” Essentially in a gift economy participants assist other participants without the expectation of reciprocation. The reason for this is the suppliers of information (just as an example) assume that the recipients would do the same for them had they been in the same situation. Kollock presents a great analogy in his writing regarding gifts in a gift economy. He states “gifts are unique: it is not simply a sweater, but rather the sweater-that-Bill-gave-me” (1999). In a sense, the exchanges in a gift economy are unique and don’t require any form of payback from the recipient.
A gift economy differs from a commodity economy in that commodities are driven by price, not social relations, which gift economies are driven by. Referring back to the gift section of Kollock’s writing; “commodities are not unique and derive no special value having been acquired from person X rather than person Y” (1999). Simply put, it’s just business. There is no other connection required between person X and Y.
When I need to find an answer to a perplexing question at work, I don’t always have the tools or accessories necessary to experiment possible solutions within my work environment. Sometimes, finding the answer requires much more advanced measures that only an engineer would know. In these scenarios, I can’t stand not knowing the answer to everything. In fact it makes me feel like I am not qualified for the job, which of course is ridiculous for a $10 hourly wage. So, what do I do? I turn to avsforum.com, which stands for Audio Visual Science Forum, where people from all over the world post all types of questions and information pertaining to my field of work. Once you become a member (which is free) you can post any question about surround sound, plasma TV’s, projectors and so on. The crazy thing is that you are almost guaranteed to get a response. I guess you could consider it a blog.
According to Kollock (1999), I am participating in “generalized exchange” gift economy. This means that there is no particular person to whom I am posting a question to (although you could). Anyone is free to comment or participate in my delayed conversations.
According to Kylie J. Veale (2003), gift economies offer mainly intangible rewards like information or mp3 files. These intangible rewards are generated because usually one of two reasons. First, “The giver may feel there is a sense of need for their gift, therefore they produce and contribute a public good for the simple reason that a person or the group as a whole has a need for it.” Second, “attachment is a motivation where the giver contributes to the group because that is what is best for the group” (2003). To me, both of these reasons cause me to make my contribution to this online forum. I feel somewhat obligated because I have been helped countless times by people I have never met, nor will ever meet. Second, I enjoy talking about my interests and feeling a sense of belonging to a group who share those same interests. In fact, I felt even more attached to the group when I was e-mailed a Happy Birthday card the day of my birthday, which is standard among all members. There is also a sense of seniority within this forum due to the fact that everyone is labeled as having been a member of the forum since 19** or 20** or whatever year.
Richard Barbrook’s (2005) intellectual online article discusses less of what a gift economy is but rather what a gift economy does for this world. Barbrook claims that gift economies have created an ever growing free market where people don’t buy information or media before checking whether it is available for free. He states “once the first copy of a piece of information is placed on the Net, the cost of making each extra copy is almost zero” (2005). Barbrook emphasizes the rapid evolution of the net and warns “most politicians and corporate leaders believe that the future of capitalism lies in the commodification of information” (2005). So Barbrook clearly believes that gift economies are eating away at capitalism. He talks in depth about the whole distribution of digital music as a threat to record labels, which depend on CD sales.
In my opinion, gift economies are here to stay because they increase efficiency like nothing we can imagine. I can’t even begin to imagine how I would find my answers to these perplexing A/V questions posed to me at work. Without the internet, I would be reading books on engineering. Gift economies have only started to expand and demonstrate their potential influence.
References
Richard Barbrook. (December 2005).
The Hi-Tech Gift Economy. Retrieved February 6, 2007, From
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_12/barbrook/
Peter Kollock. (1999).
The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace. Retrieved February 5, 2007, From
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm
Kylie J. Veale. (November 11, 2003).
Internet gift economies: Voluntary payment schemes as tangible reciprocity. Retrieved February 8, 2007, From http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/veale/index.html#v3
Before I begin explaining my particular uses of a gift economy, let me explain what a gift economy is according to Peter Kollock of the University of California. Kollock labels a gift economy as an economy where “help and information is offered without the expectation of any direct, immediate quid-pro-quo.” Essentially in a gift economy participants assist other participants without the expectation of reciprocation. The reason for this is the suppliers of information (just as an example) assume that the recipients would do the same for them had they been in the same situation. Kollock presents a great analogy in his writing regarding gifts in a gift economy. He states “gifts are unique: it is not simply a sweater, but rather the sweater-that-Bill-gave-me” (1999). In a sense, the exchanges in a gift economy are unique and don’t require any form of payback from the recipient.
A gift economy differs from a commodity economy in that commodities are driven by price, not social relations, which gift economies are driven by. Referring back to the gift section of Kollock’s writing; “commodities are not unique and derive no special value having been acquired from person X rather than person Y” (1999). Simply put, it’s just business. There is no other connection required between person X and Y.
When I need to find an answer to a perplexing question at work, I don’t always have the tools or accessories necessary to experiment possible solutions within my work environment. Sometimes, finding the answer requires much more advanced measures that only an engineer would know. In these scenarios, I can’t stand not knowing the answer to everything. In fact it makes me feel like I am not qualified for the job, which of course is ridiculous for a $10 hourly wage. So, what do I do? I turn to avsforum.com, which stands for Audio Visual Science Forum, where people from all over the world post all types of questions and information pertaining to my field of work. Once you become a member (which is free) you can post any question about surround sound, plasma TV’s, projectors and so on. The crazy thing is that you are almost guaranteed to get a response. I guess you could consider it a blog.
According to Kollock (1999), I am participating in “generalized exchange” gift economy. This means that there is no particular person to whom I am posting a question to (although you could). Anyone is free to comment or participate in my delayed conversations.
According to Kylie J. Veale (2003), gift economies offer mainly intangible rewards like information or mp3 files. These intangible rewards are generated because usually one of two reasons. First, “The giver may feel there is a sense of need for their gift, therefore they produce and contribute a public good for the simple reason that a person or the group as a whole has a need for it.” Second, “attachment is a motivation where the giver contributes to the group because that is what is best for the group” (2003). To me, both of these reasons cause me to make my contribution to this online forum. I feel somewhat obligated because I have been helped countless times by people I have never met, nor will ever meet. Second, I enjoy talking about my interests and feeling a sense of belonging to a group who share those same interests. In fact, I felt even more attached to the group when I was e-mailed a Happy Birthday card the day of my birthday, which is standard among all members. There is also a sense of seniority within this forum due to the fact that everyone is labeled as having been a member of the forum since 19** or 20** or whatever year.
Richard Barbrook’s (2005) intellectual online article discusses less of what a gift economy is but rather what a gift economy does for this world. Barbrook claims that gift economies have created an ever growing free market where people don’t buy information or media before checking whether it is available for free. He states “once the first copy of a piece of information is placed on the Net, the cost of making each extra copy is almost zero” (2005). Barbrook emphasizes the rapid evolution of the net and warns “most politicians and corporate leaders believe that the future of capitalism lies in the commodification of information” (2005). So Barbrook clearly believes that gift economies are eating away at capitalism. He talks in depth about the whole distribution of digital music as a threat to record labels, which depend on CD sales.
In my opinion, gift economies are here to stay because they increase efficiency like nothing we can imagine. I can’t even begin to imagine how I would find my answers to these perplexing A/V questions posed to me at work. Without the internet, I would be reading books on engineering. Gift economies have only started to expand and demonstrate their potential influence.
References
Richard Barbrook. (December 2005).
The Hi-Tech Gift Economy. Retrieved February 6, 2007, From
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_12/barbrook/
Peter Kollock. (1999).
The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace. Retrieved February 5, 2007, From
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm
Kylie J. Veale. (November 11, 2003).
Internet gift economies: Voluntary payment schemes as tangible reciprocity. Retrieved February 8, 2007, From http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/veale/index.html#v3
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