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Viewpoint: living and bidding in an auction economy

The greatest barrier to an optimal free market is imperfect and costly information; to the extent that any buyer or seller is unaware of the other, economic opportunity is lost. In traditional markets, time, geography, language—and a host of other factors—have all been barriers to the complete exchange of information necessary for a perfect market. With the continuing evolution of the Internet, these structural impediments to the efficient exchange of information are obviated; we are entering the era of the perfect market. On its face, this observation may not seem earthshaking; most people understand that the Internet has created phenomenal opportunities for new business. But it is not the dot-com phenomenon that fundamentally changes how we will work and live in the future; the dot-com enterprise, when one cuts through the hype, is basically a traditional business. What will dramatically change our economic and social experience is a marketplace characterized by a frictionless and very low-cost flow of information between buyers and sellers. Because of the cybermarket’s free-flowing information, dynamic pricing can occur, that is, goods and service are priced according to the specific characteristics of supply and demand at the time of purchase. Essentially, an auction economy will gradually evolve, where goods and services are priced at the time of purchase, through a bidding process by buyers and sellers. Although auctions are certainly not new, the idea that all (or most) goods and services can be auction-priced has radical implications for both individuals and business organizations, as well as the greater economy. The importance of the auction economy is illustrated using content analysis similar to John Naisbitt’s in Megatrends [1]. The accompanying figure shows a 10-year track of articles related to the Internet auction phenomenon; clearly, the auction mar-