Sounds reasonable. So, now I have a responsibility to all of my publishers and customers to display the books fairly. Th

Here’s the problem: What if I then decide to publish my own books? If I move the other publisher’s books to the back and put mine in the window, and on the central table, and stick a big happy sticker on them that says ‘Essential reading!’. Sound familiar?

If this were to happen in a physical marketplace, if the folks who owned the market square took a fee and let people come in and set up their stall in the corner, but then flogged their own wares at the front, with a big sign, it would be simple. People would go elsewhere. Suppliers would find another, fairer square and customers would follow. Ultimately the venue would have to change or go out of business.

Responsibility should lie with the platforms themselves. I am part of the platform that is snapcraft.io’s snap store. The app store for Linux. Whether you know what that is doesn’t matter. What matters is that there are people behind the platform aware of the issue and taking responsibility for creating a fair environment for all our users. It’s easy to say “we should put our newest software at the top of the store” but we shouldn’t.

A platform is a place for customers and suppliers, we are there to support and maintain. On our platform, the only apps we have any amount of stake in are popular third-party applications without third party maintenance (so we do it for them) or apps developed by employees who have no impact on the store itself and are hidden behind a developer account like everyone else. It’s an easy line to cross but it’s important not to.

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h a joke, because like he said, he can’t say anything serious that isn’t followed by a punchline, but he’s serious. And like the saying goes there’s truth in every joke. That joke was, he’s not putting it all on white people but he’s been Black all his life and there seems to be a pattern.

There is always something you can do, as a customer, a supplier or as a venue. The best resource I’ve found is the Centre for Humane Technology (CHT). They don’t deal with this exact issue as far as I have seen but are doing work to address the much deeper problem within what they call the attention economy. You might know them already from the ‘Social Dilemma’ on Netflix.

I am a supplier to this marketplace, Medium, and I intend to be a supplier to others in the future, hopefully to bookshops, hopefully to Airbnb, hopefully to the snapstore, and probably more. Something suppliers can do is raise the question with the platform, what are their policies, where do they stand on anti-competitive behaviour. Suppliers probably have the most to lose here so it’s more of a risk to take action.

That’s easy, I’ll cycle their books to central tables or in the window. And to make a little extra money because not all parts of the bookshop are made equal I’ll allow publishers to pay me a bit more to get their books in the window more often. Aka ads. (This is capitalism after all). Fine. I also hold events, signings and book clubs completely separate from the publishers to foster a community and bring us all more business. Perfect.

But of course, since this is a marketplace and because these platforms have bigger budgets for the user experience than you can possibly imagine, it feels fine. You still have all of the choices, it’s just further down the page, they’re just pointing you at the best choice. Oh? But when did the best choice become their choice?

Naturally, its a fine line. Recommendations are very helpful. That is recommendations based on reviews, quality checks, or choice filters. But promoting your products or products you have a stake in, in your marketplace, above others, because they’re yours, is not okay.

I’ve had a few conversations with real people in the lead up to writing this, and, I’ve written this. That’s a little bit of pressing. For what little difference it will make I try to use smaller marketplace platforms that are actively, obviously, supporting their suppliers. Like these: Bookshop, Medium (platform plug?) hive, Etsy

In a world of algorithms, big data and companies big enough to take on governments, this is not possible. There simply isn’t somewhere else to go. More so than ever, platforms like this have a responsibility to behave, or should be held accountable if they can’t. This breakdown of trust between venues and their suppliers undercuts suppliers and affects the customer. Platforms designed to provide more choice, and more opportunity flip, and are suddenly forcing what we see.

I am a customer of numerous marketplaces, big and small. Realistically I can’t challenge them, they have no obligation to do anything and it certainly takes more than a mopey article to change anything. But what I can do is continue to press the issue and raise awareness.

Or if I am an app store giving developers and tech organisations the opportunity to publish and promote their apps in my store. But then I put my own software on their devices by default and on the front page, and I put theirs behind some clicks and after some scrolling? You can see this is bad form, it’s unethical and it doesn’t foster trust or a positive competitive environment.

That is called a shop. Not a marketplace. A company is of course allowed to sell their own products. But then you are not a marketplace, or really a platform, you are a shop. You cannot own the platform and sell your products in your own marketplace. Even if you have all the right intentions, even if you take all the right precautions to make it fair. You have an overwhelmingly unfair advantage and it creates a distrusting environment. Monopolies monopolise, suppliers go under and customers get the wool pulled over their eyes.