Welcome to Prosumer Revisited

Frankfurt.
I've arrived at the Prosumer Revisited conference in Frankfurt, where we've gathered in the very stylish main hall of the Johann-Wolfgang-von-Goethe-Universität. We begin with a welcome by conference chair Birgit Blättel-Mink, and a representative from conference sponsor eBay, who notes the site's own contribution to prosumption culture (and describes what eBay generated more specifically as an 'auction culture', from which the site is slowly moving on, however - a culture of buying and reselling goods relatively rapidly, of a transient ownership which I've also touched on in the final chapter of my produsage book).

This new understanding of material possessions, this secondary market for commodities, is also interesting in the context of sustainability, of course - it is a move away from the disposable culture of the 80s and 90s: 'better second hand than second choice', as he puts it. Secondary markets make inefficient markets more efficient, and they circumvent old-fashioned distribution restrictions which are still in place for some goods (think region coding on DVDs, controlled releases into geographical territories, etc.).

And in this eBayified environment, the resale value of a used good is increasingly important in determining the value of a brand, too. In terms of sustainability, by the way, eBay has now rolled out a number of 'green teams' which examine the potential for the further development of sustainable business and market practices.

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