Digital Disaggregation

We had a short spate of conversation at the TAPoR meeting on forms of disaggregation (and I guess corollorarily demand aggregation) when looking at online swap/consolidation sites. I cam across a further swap site this morning that illustrated this concept…and is one more example of the way in which internet collectivization is changing normal modes of economic exchange through contractual intermediation and introducing another layer of rentier behaviour. CellSwapper, is a P2P exchange that connects people wanting to get out of long term cell phone plans with those looking to pick up a shorter term plan without the costs of activation of of cancellation. That is they are trading on that thin layer of administrative costs that carriers demand. The site is unfortunately for me only available to the US, but they are promising broader geographic coverage shorty. A further form of aggregation is demonstrated by the microlending sites such as the two that I mentioned in an earlier post, Zopa and Prosper.