Marketing without trust? – Blockchain technologies in the sharing economy as assemblage and pharmakon

Abstract

Blockchain technologies are of great interest to marketers uncovering opportunities in the context of the sharing economy. The novel appeal of blockchain is that it provides an immutable audit trail of digital tokens and contracts via a peer-to-peer (P2P) network without the need for a market intermediary. It thus enables digital exchange without the need for a trusted central authority or third party, affording an infrastructure for a variety of applications. We assess how blockchain technologies facilitate sharing beyond its role as a technological protocol and how it instead operates as a social machine. We explore these implications for marketing philosophically through the lenses of assemblage and pharmakon. We identify two contradictions for marketers: (1) how marketing with blockchain technologies in the sharing economy challenges past institutional roles of marketers and seeks to eradicate them, and (2) how these technologies produce a new notion of capitalized sociality devoid of trust.