By author Morgan Jassen on w̶i̶e̶l̶d̶s̶i̶l̶v̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶ 2021-01-01 20:46 Revisiting A Barter Association Idea In about 2007 I was fascinated by the concept of a local barter (trade exchange) company. It sounded neat and I kind of got how it worked, but still felt like I didn't understand it fully. I still don't but now thinking of it again. Looked back and I see that company brands itself as being a marketing and advertising company. That is their business/industry. Not as a financial institution nor bank nor credit card company, nor other financial group as I may have guessed in the past. This didn't make sense but I wanted to understand this. I see most member organization clients are service providers such as vacation services, dental services, repair services, creative/design services, legal/lawyer services, etc. etc. In many states (mine included), services aren't taxable. Thus there's not a tax break per se for bartering. Thus why do barter? The barter company also gets some small fee for maintaining the system too. So it's not free to clients. Considering this, now I view this as, the barter company is essentially a marketing firm which helps market member organization clients to each other so effectively, that each of the member organization clients are willing to provide free services to each other! In other words I see it as a dental service provides free cleaning to both an auto service client and a plumbing service client. Then a few months later the auto service client provides free service to the dental + plumbing service clients. Then some time the plumbing service client provides free service to the dental + auto service client. Interesting "marketing" paradigm. In conclusion, this has been musings on the paradigm of a barter association. This blog post first published at https://w̶i̶e̶l̶d̶s̶i̶l̶v̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2021/blog/ Copyright © w̶i̶e̶l̶d̶s̶i̶l̶v̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶ and individual authors (unless otherwise noted) w̶i̶e̶l̶d̶s̶i̶l̶v̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶ statement - I blog about products for which I own company shares.