The biggest problem I have with the concept of Gift Economies is the fact that mammals are hierarchical critters and money is one of the ways we sort out the alpha, beta, theta of dominance.
From the Harvard Business Review:
How to Thrive in Social Media's Gift Economy
So you've got your brand on social media. You have a Facebook page and Twitter account. Maybe a Pinterest board. But now what? There has to be more to social media than posting coupons and running sweepstakes. How do you drive real customer engagement?
The answer may come not from Silicon Valley or Madison Avenue, but from places like the Trobriand Islands and the Pacific Northwest.
Indigenous cultures developed what anthropologists call gift economies. As observed by Marcel Mauss, Lewis Hyde, and others, gift economies are quite different from the market economies to which we are accustomed.
The concept of gift economies has been used to explain open source software and the Burning Man festival. But it also provides insight into what works — and doesn't work — with social media, and what brands can do to be more successful in the online arena.
To understand a gift economy, consider the example of moving into a new apartment. When friends help you move, you express your appreciation by providing pizza and beer — really good pizza and beer. When you hire professional movers, you pay with money. Offer your friends money instead of pizza and beer, and they are likely to be offended. Offer to pay the movers in pizza and beer, and they won't unload the truck. Your friends are operating in a gift economy; the movers in a market economy.
While both market and gift economies are systems of exchange, they differ in three fundamental ways.
1) Context: Transaction or Relationship
In a market economy, the focus is on transactions. In a gift economy, the focus is on relationships. Trobriand Islanders passed along necklaces and armbands as part of a ritual called the Kula Ring. An item's value was not determined by supply and demand, or measured by a market price. Instead, its value came from the relationship between the giver and receiver and its meaning in the community....MORE
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