Live-streaming commerce hosts appear to be driving consumption — but in reality, they haven’t created any new market. They’ve simply seized existing market share.
That same market share used to sustain countless brick-and-mortar shops and their employees, supporting stable livelihoods for many people. The winner-takes-all Matthew Effect of top-tier streaming hosts has instead triggered mass unemployment.
Merchants find themselves losing money just to stay in the game — but they have no choice but to play along. Consumers find shopping more cumbersome than ever, forced to sit through livestreams or pay more elsewhere. Workers find fewer local jobs available — positions that could have offered stability in a smaller hometown city have evaporated, leaving people no option but to uproot their lives and migrate for work.
To be fair, I won’t say live-stream commerce is entirely without value. It has, through information technology, improved transactional efficiency.
But from the perspective of the nation as a whole — has this industry truly generated more wealth?
I have my doubts.