Money Killed Barter; Can a Platform Bring It Back?
From The Answer Is Transaction Costs by Michael Munger
December 9, 2025 · 49 min
About this episode
The episode explores the decline of barter due to transaction costs and how modern platforms like Tbadel can revive it.
Send us Fan Mail We explore why money became the default middleman and how a modern platform can make barter practical by slashing the costs of search, matching, and trust. Founder Jassim Baqer shares the story behind Tbadel, what people actually trade, and how reputation, bundling, and scale (might) make swaps work. • Adam Smith’s "double coincidence of wants" problem and transaction costs • Platforms as connection engines that lower search and matching costs • Tabottle’s origin, goals and ...
People in this episode
Host: Michael Munger
Guest: Jassim Baqer
Topics covered
- barter
- transaction costs
- platforms
- economics
- trust
- reputation
Keywords
- money
- barter
- transaction costs
- platforms
- search costs
- matching
- trust
- reputation
- swaps
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Tbadel, Tabottle
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