Think about all the things that give you global scale online:
- The Internet
- The Web
- RSS
- Cash
- Credit
Now think about what traps you:
- Every loyalty, membership, and rewards program
- Every subscription
- Every account with a login and a password
- Every system with its own private ways to manage you, control you, keep you locked in
And now think about how much business the latter system prevents rather than enables. Such as having your own VRM tools for working with all the world’s CRM systems. Among other graces, VRM+CRM would give both customers and companies common ways to exchange useful information about product usage, new or changed service offerings, and other forms of useful intelligence that are now isolated and different for every company with systems built to hold customers captive.
I think these systems needs a label, because we need to position them. Make them characters in stories about business.
Here are a few I’ve come up with:
- Captivity commerce
- Capture commerce
- Custody commerce
- Coercive commerce
- Roach motel retail
- Hotel California commerce
I could go on, but I like the first one best, which is why I’ve boldfaced it. If you think of a better one, let me have it. Because it’ll be a chapter title of the next edition of The Intention Economy. And it’ll be one of the norms that fall when MyTerms succeeds by making customers partners rather than captives—and fully loaded Cluetrains run from customers to companies.
What do we call the opposite of captivity commerce? The Intention Economy is one choice, which I provided in that book sixteen years ago. But now there might be others. Lemme have ’em.
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