The Untapped Potential of Horizontal E-Markets

Across the economic base, digital market technologies could deliver growth, inclusion, higher incomes, productivity and resource efficiency. But it requires equitable, horizontal, (all sectors joined-up), market platforms; not the single-sector asymmetric verticals of today. Whether citizens and businesses can have such markets is a policy decision. The private sector alone can't create granular integrated e-markets. Allowing access to facilities that governments control would incentivize corporates to fund and run seamless, lowest cost, broad markets. 

 

How would an intermeshed system of e-markets embracing thousands of sectors in any jurisdiction differ? It would allow, as one simple example, a busy parent to book a dental hygienist's appointment, a haircut, travel to the surgery then salon then back home, childcare for the two hours she would be out, rental of a paddling pool for the children, and a loan to fund it all in about 30 seconds in one transaction. Each need would be met by individual, underwritten, local people competing on their own terms.

 

The impact of this joining-up goes beyond convenience for purchasers. Commonality of market functions, contracts, charges and activity data combined with functionality not viable in verticals would allow any economic asset (person or object) to be exposed to uniquely wide opportunity. So, someone now working as a line cook may also have lived experience in retail, van driving, gardening, Vietnamese interpreting and garment modifications. A horizontal market system allows her to effortlessly be available, on her terms, simultaneously, across all earnings possibilities around her home for whatever hours she wishes; today, tomorrow, or weeks ahead. Like-for-like data across sectors could inform her decisions and - by exposing market gaps she is placed to fill - attract investment in her upskilling.

 

Despite this potency of technologies to match buyers/sellers of labor, finance, goods or services, we live in a world shaped by vertical markets; Uber/ Lyft/ Bolt for minicabs, StyleSeat/ Booksy /Vagaro for beauty treatments, Dentulu/ WhatClinic for tooth cleaning, Sitter.com/ UrbanSitter/ Nanny Lane/ Sittercity for childcare, Peerby/ RNTR/,  Yoodlize/ FriendWithA for neighborhood goods rentals, and so, endlessly, on. Each market has its own registration, specialisms, rules and charges. Most will go bust.

 

Currently, profitability for e-market operators flows from dominance of a vertical, typically international. Rover's global supremacy in dog walking services, as one example, netted its operators $2.3bn in a 2024 sale to private equity. Achieving sector dominance requires huge spend on customer acquisition and building duplicative technology. Those costs must be recouped through high prices and/or low pay. But buyers and sellers gain little from global reach. Few people travel the world to walk dogs. So many have a wide range of monetizable possibilities around their local economy, including love of animals. 

 

Governments have unique leverage and need to instigate horizontal markets across their economy in uncertain times. A concession, like those that create official lotteries, can offer interface to a range of unique publicly owned facilities to a consortium willing to provide a region-wide, all-sectors, market platform. Accompanying public service obligations ensure the highest standards. This policy extends DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) to full-service markets that include ID checks, payments and other tools.