The Distortions in the Consumer's Decision-Making Process when Markets are Digitalized

Abstract

The article aims to analyze the mechanisms used in the digital space to distort the consumer's decision-making process and how understanding them can help changing the perception of the user's role in the digital economy. Given the implementation of Big Data in commercial relations, it is possible to observe a shift in the way economic agents organize themselves to seek data and the attention of users. This movement has proven profitable for companies, because from the crossing of optimized information, platforms realized that they could deliver excellent suggestions to users (matching markets), while obtaining revenue from other agents using the free data collected. This dynamic favors the reduction of the reflexive process of consumers and gives greater openness to the capture of cognitive vulnerabilities. In this sense, we sought to identify the main mental deviations exploited to induce behaviors with purposes unilaterally beneficial to digital platforms and advertising agents. Among the main pitfalls, we highlighted the attempt of mental pollution by excessive information, ad personalization, price discrimination, and triggers to keep users active or instigated. Finally, the study presents a proposal for the empowerment of the consumer user, using the power of network effects to bring to the debate an important aspect, the power of users in the current digital economy. Through the inductive method, the paper found that users can influence and even change market dynamics by mass migration. In this sense, platforms depend on data and attention for revenue, and it is entirely up to the user to choose which platforms to deliver to.