The Future of Commerce

Let us take a look into the crystal ball for a glimpse of the future; it’s the fascinating era of Really Late Capitalism! There are cultural clues all around us, telling our fortune and foreshadowing our fiscal fate. In this is reverse history lesson, we'll answer the question, "How bad is this gonna suck?"

In the free market heyday, businesses were in equitable competition with each other; the best product or service would supposedly attract the most customers. Unfortunately, greedy industry leaders have always been obsessed with reaching an abstract and intangible mega-profit, no matter what had to be destroyed along the way. Capitalism eventually reached an economic peak and subsequently began a fast and violent free fall.

Buy Out or Die Out

Capitalism’s rock bottom is a post-apocalyptic quagmire of economic atrophy. Starving for scarce profit, businesses desperately struggle for the last piece of market share, as one company after another meets its doom in bankruptcy court. The days of small business success have been over for, it seems like, eons. For years, shop owners such as Bob (from Bob’s Electronics) and Big Lou (from Big Lou’s Bar & Grill) have been buried in freshly-paved suburban graves. But now even corporate giants are looking down the barrel of the same gun, per capitalism’s inherent design. 

Further competition will only result in more casualties, so the only way for corporations to survive in this climate is to merge operations. Sort of like how people are always getting married, just because it takes more than one income to live. The great wave of corporate mergers results in some very bizarre combos -- or creates exciting, quality products for the consumer?

And no idea could be worse than being friends with your Exxon-Facebook...

Big Box Stores Are Big Busts; Little Mom and Pop Shops Are Giant Flops

Back in the good old days, Best Buy and its brethren had a real knack for undercutting the prices at Bob’s Electronics. But eventually, internet websites started doing the same to Best Buy’s business; online retailers didn’t have pesky capital expenses like rent and labor to interfere with their profits. So basically what happened next was every last retail worker got laid off and commerce began functioning almost exclusively on the internet. This is much easier to accept if you can get a good wi-fi signal in your cardboard box-home.

You might think, "Wow, so everything will be just shipped out of gigantic warehouses. But that means the big logistics companies will be doing great, right?"

Yes, the companies will doing great.

A Topographic Timeline of America

Pre-20th Century: Vast wilderness; amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesty.

Mid-20th Century: Dense clusters of glorious retail ziggurats.

21st Century: Dense clusters of deserted retail ziggurats.

Some say these empty shops are gloomy eyesores. But that's such a yuppie thing to say. Salt-of-the-earth-type people are more upbeat. Not only do they squat in these strip malls, but they furnish and decorate them, HGTV style!

Your Information is Their Business

Remember how boring and lonely Facebook was before advertisers took it over? It was so lame, like watching TV with no commercials. Like, you couldn’t do anything fun like “like” your favorite brand; it was just a stream of useless minutiae from loose acquaintances. I don’t care what what’s-his-fuck had for lunch, I want to change my relationship status to “Loves Starbucks!” Otherwise, I don’t believe it’s official.

So eventually advertisers gave us a good reason to spend hours and hours on Facebook. But companies kept needing more and more of our business and attention. And when you consider all the excessive personal data we carelessly catalog online, our favorite brands don’t need a survey to figure out exactly what we think. We might “like” them, but they might “lurk” us.

Secondhand Chic

Inside the chasm of the ravaged economy emerged an entirely new craze, the commodity: secondhand crap. Sure, flea markets and garage sales had always been around, but they were traditionally just niche conventions for cheapos and grifters. But in the future, this is going to be big business, and old junk is going to earn big bucks.

Back when the recession was just cranking up, websites like eBay served as sort of an underground railroad leading to somebody else’s shit. Before long the craze was in full swing. Virtual reality allowed us to rummage though the attics and closets of people all over the world. Thrift store fashions were more en vogue than anything on a Parisian runway. You didn’t need a shopping list, you just needed Craig’s list. And finally sex could no longer dominate television. The only thing we wanted to watch on TV was bargain hunters spelunking through barns in search of hidden treasures.

It was certain that this trend was here to stay. Another 2012-era certainty was that eventually, shit would hit the fan with China, the world’s leader in slave-driven manufacturing. So when international relations aren’t exactly hunky-dory, the only way Americans can be self-sufficient is to make do with the crap we already have sitting around. This means a new fiscal age, and you already know who’s in the driver’s seat.

The Economy: Fixed!

When the hoarders and hustlers of yesteryear have become the well-to-do elite, the American dream has been fulfilled, and economic prosperity pervades every class. Rich with relics of the good 'ol days, common folk propel into society's upper crust; the middle class is restored like a precious antique with a steep price tag. And used goods are the currency. If you want a better life, barter for it; if you don’t have a job, blame yo self.

If you have a one-bedroom apartment, stacked floor-to-ceiling with knick-knacks and whatsits, you sit on a veritable gold mine. If your front yard is loaded with plastic flamingos and an ’81 Plymouth, you’re rich and you want people to know it. Today these sound like partial Jeff Foxworthy jokes, but tomorrow, they will be success stories.

The future may look mighty strange, but it's easy to see how we’re getting there. However one thing will never change: whether it’s running a business or shopping at a garage sale, the absolute best way to get rich in The United States of Bank of America is still…

Steal.