It’s beneficial for A and B to engage in mutual trade of goods and services. If A and B would not have traded unless C was involved, and C takes a 20% cut yet A and B still want to trade despite that, then C is probably an economic good. Introducing buyers to sellers (and vice versa) is a whole job in modern economies after all.
I find the phrasing of C as an economic good a bit odd. I suspect economists would refer to C as and entrepreneur acting to move the allocation of resources towards equilibrium of some unmentioned economic good or resource. I think C would be better viewed as acting in some type of economic role rather than as some economic good. Is there something in your thinking I am missing that makes it better to describe C as an economic good that is somehow taking a 20% cut of the value of the exchange between A and B?
Ok yeah my bad, economic good is a term that already has a specific meaning and I meant it more as that C is a good thing for the overall economy lol. I mean it more like this:
A: Has a Pikachu card but wants a Charizard card.
B: Has a Charizard card but wants a Pikachu card.
Normally A and B would just trade each other, but what if they don’t know the other exists or can’t find each other? In comes our “matcher” C. Maybe A values the Charizard card as (Pikachu + $2) so he pays C a dollar to find a person willing to trade, they find B, a trade occurs and everyone’s life is better for it. It is a good thing that C did the job of matching A and B together.
Matchmakers, brokers, marketplaces, etc are examples of matchers. A grocery store has an actual economic purpose that creates value instead of extraction.
I find the phrasing of C as an economic good a bit odd. I suspect economists would refer to C as and entrepreneur acting to move the allocation of resources towards equilibrium of some unmentioned economic good or resource. I think C would be better viewed as acting in some type of economic role rather than as some economic good. Is there something in your thinking I am missing that makes it better to describe C as an economic good that is somehow taking a 20% cut of the value of the exchange between A and B?
Ok yeah my bad, economic good is a term that already has a specific meaning and I meant it more as that C is a good thing for the overall economy lol. I mean it more like this:
A: Has a Pikachu card but wants a Charizard card.
B: Has a Charizard card but wants a Pikachu card.
Normally A and B would just trade each other, but what if they don’t know the other exists or can’t find each other? In comes our “matcher” C. Maybe A values the Charizard card as (Pikachu + $2) so he pays C a dollar to find a person willing to trade, they find B, a trade occurs and everyone’s life is better for it. It is a good thing that C did the job of matching A and B together.
Matchmakers, brokers, marketplaces, etc are examples of matchers. A grocery store has an actual economic purpose that creates value instead of extraction.