Friday, February 9, 2007

QotW4: Better to Give than to Receive?


In few years back, McLuhan prophesied (Whittenburg, 1999) that electronic media would retribalize the human race, as people could easily get connected to others in the different part of the world, best described in a term called global village.

Now we aware that we are living in two different worlds, the real world, and another one called cyberspace, which is the fulfillment of McLuhan's prophecy.

In cyberspace, people are engaged in economic activities as well in the real world. There are lots of site which allow them to buy things online. However, there are also much economic activities which do not need any money, but as valuable as if they spent their money on it. It's the gift economy, something that people share public good on the Internet to numbers of recipient for free (Rheingold, 1993). Recipients do not feel too-obligated as if they receive a gift in a real world. However, they can “pay back” by sharing other public goods in the future. Quid-pro-quo (latin terms for 'a favor for a favor') does not certainly fit this kind of economy, as people do not have to pay back immediately.

“... What a miracle, then, that you receive not one thing in value in exchange - indeed there is no explicit act of exchange at all - but millions of unique goods made by others!" (Ghosh, 1998)

There are two characteristics which make public goods different from 'ordinary' goods. First, the value keeps the same regardless of how many people have consumed the good, which is called indivisible. The second characteristic is non-excludable, everybody has the same chance to benefit from the good. These two characteristics are the the main reason of why people nowadays like to access public goods more than the 'usual' good. For example, rather than going to a reparation centre, people find solutions of how to repair a computer at home by asking questions in a computer engineer forum. Further details will be given in the later paragraph.

Knowing that recipients do not have to pay anything for the thing that they accessed to, some people use it greedily. They just receive public goods without any contribution of sharing anything. This issue may lead to social dilemma – individually reasonable behavior (gathering but not offering information) leads to collective disaster (Kollock, 1999). If more and more people were tempted to be greedy, there would be less people who want to share public goods on the Internet. Thus, the benefit of having a gift economy would no more be enjoyed by the rest of the users.

Forum is the most commonly-used of a gift economy. In a forum, people with the same interests usually share public goods (information, file, etc.) within their community. One forum that I am involved in is Lowyat.net, which was introduced to me by my elder brother.

Lowyat.net (http://www.lowyat.net/v2/) is a forum created by so-called "Malaysian tech enthusiasts". Named after Malaysia's largest IT shopping centre Lowyat Plaza (KL), lowyat.net has a forum populated by more than a thousand users. Some of them are regular users who has reached thousands of posts while the other are occasional users who come and go as they need it.

Being dubbed as "tech forum" doesn't makes lowyat.net solely hosts topic regarding computer and technology which often being associated with guys. It has some other forums with range of topics from female matters to soccer and from love matter to jokes. No pornographic images or story is allowed though.

One of the most popular forum inside is the technical support where users who has problem with their computer can post their problem and see if there's any other users who could help them. Sometimes the help given could worth a few hundred Ringgit Malaysia if the problem is brought to the service center. Yet, inside the forum the troubled users can get it for free if only they are willing to wait for some time.

In conclusion, a gift economy is a REAL gift for us who live in the global village. Let's be responsible to maintain its existence. We might be familiar with what the elders said, “It's better to give than to receive.” In order to maintain economy, let's say, “It's okay to receive, but don't forget to give.”

References

Ghosh, R. A. (1998). Cooking Pot Markets: an Economic Model for the Trade in Free Goods and Services on the Internet. First Monday, 3 (3), Retrieved February 8, 2007, from http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_3/ghosh/index.html

Kollock, P. (1999). The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace. Retrieved February 6, 2007 from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm

Rheingold, H. (1993). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.
New York: Addison-Wesley.

Whittenburg, S. (1999). The Electronic Age: The Global Village. Retrieved February 8, 2007, from Technological Determinism of Marshall Mcluhan Web site: http://www.usm.maine.edu/com/techdet/sld013.htm

www.lowyat.net/v2/

2 comments:

Kevin said...

Good example and explanation. Sounds like I should visit Lowyat.net and even the shopping center sometime soon. Full grade awarded! :)

Unknown said...

hehe... nice and good! two thumbs dech..