Would populations start to use a GEMs system?

Abstract

Public electronic markets would be particularly vulnerable to the law of network externalities: the more who use the system, the more valuable the service to each of them becomes. Starting with only a handful of sectors and growing to the scale of operation outlined in this section, GEMs’ need for secure trades in an open market would demand its users follow procedures that are going to be unfamiliar to most and daunting to some. A cultural leap would be needed to take computer issued codewords from their currently rarefied status in, for instance, ticketless business travel to routine use between neighbours hiring each other’s lawnmowers. Likewise, we are so used to entering into unstated webs of contractual protection, and shrugging off their periodic failures, that signing a written contract for transactions as small as buying a second-hand music CD then engaging a teenager to cycle round and deliver it could seem frighteningly formal.