WHEN THREE young entrepreneurs decided to start an online marketplace in Argentina in 1999, their chances seemed slim. Only a select few had access to the internet and money was scarce.

Link: https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2022/01/15/the-pandemic-has-accelerated-latin-americas-startup-boom

2021 was the year of broken supply chains, Amazon aggregators, more advertising, Shopify’s almost-marketplace, and one unanswered question – did the pandemic boost e-commerce after all? For now, the world of marketplaces revolves around Amazon – it has doubled in size in two years.

Link: https://www.marketplacepulse.com/marketplaces-year-in-review-2021

During the first era of the internet — from the 1980s through the early 2000s — internet services were built on open protocols that were controlled by the internet community.

Link: https://cdixon.org/2018/02/18/why-decentralization-matters/

In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, David Graeber makes the case that a sizable chunk of the labour economy is essentially people performing useless work, as a sort of subconscious self-preservation instinct of the economic status quo.

Link: https://paulbutler.org/2021/play-to-earn-and-bullshit-jobs/