I read this piece today and the way it depicts social networks like Instagram as (effective) economies really resonated with me.

Do you also tend to think of social products (or any other communication products, for that matter) in this way, especially when designing them? In what ways does the metaphor of product as market or economy help with the design process, and in what ways does it perhaps mislead or detract from it?

Should we be more aware of the "economic" qualities of our work?

Good article - I was totally onboard with the argument that these products are made by the labor of their workers/users. But the economic implications of that metaphor don't really resonate with me.

One of the things that always interested me about Twitter was that it turned anyone into an observer on the world. You got access to all these eyes and ears. Your senses were extended! But it doesn't feel as true to me that those folks are being exploited for their labor.

Me either. They feel more like co-ops than Apple factories to me.
Webb is just being sensationalist. I have never once – not once – thought to myself, "wow, Facebook and Twitter are really using me. WTF!"

The real question is: why does Robert Scoble have 250,000 followers on Twitter? What free market economy produced that? Blows my mind.

I'm not sure I'd focus too much on the Marxist aspects, and I'm also not sure whether Webb is writing this primarily to protest (in that he thinks we should view this as exploitation).

I see this more as an appreciation for, and depiction of, the fact that social network users are essentially engaged in exchange, albeit of non-physical goods. They are trading content for expression, and vice-versa. And if that economy isn't fostered effectively through design, neither will occur all that much.

I buy that, for sure.

Do you think certain 'workers' are better in certain factories?

We're facing this question with Branch. Do we design for the person who is good at hosting conversations (i.e. build power user features), or should we be designing for everybody (simplify and reduce the feature set)?

If you're thinking about Branch as a marketplace, then that question boils down to who you want to be the various sellers and buyers, and what do you want them exchanging. Perhaps the market should be between thought leaders (sellers) and average news & oped readers (buyers), who pay by expressing their approval or disapproval on what's said in various ways. Or, perhaps the marketplace is more p2p where everyone buys and sells (ie ave joes start conversations), but how do they want to be paid?

I think Webb's piece is rather brilliant and also fun to read.

I do think of products/platforms as marketplaces. Pretty much all the major Internet services (not just social networks) are marketplaces, save for pure communications tools or games.

They're marketplaces owners—like a mall or a stock exchange. There are rules to adhere to, but producers and consumers enter into voluntary transactions independently. Which makes the factory metaphor break down a bit for me.

The currencies exchanged in these marketplaces are clicks and dollars (Google), favs, retweets, and follows (Twitter), friends and comments (Facebook). Sometimes the producer and consumer populations overlap heavily (Instagram), sometimes less so (YouTube).

Matt's point about workers being marketers is good, but that's why it seems to me like a mall (or a town): The producers are all out marketing themselves independently, which is somewhat competitive but ends up benefitting the whole.

Not to say that it's always win-win-win. Because the marketplace is controlled by the owner, they can change the rules, making it a much less hospitable environment for some (usually to benefit themselves), thus threatening the investment many producers have made.