ABSTRACT
Today’s digital economy is increasingly catering to consumers’ emotions and experiences, providing numerous services to meet these needs. Such services are particularly characteristic of social media platforms, which have based their business models on providing consumers with the infrastructure to express themselves and build social interactions. These shifts in consumer market offerings are part of the much broader post-consumption phenomenon, in which individuals seek emotions and social relationships in the marketplace rather than classic goods that can be expressed in conventional monetary value. This chapter explores the deeper implications of these new consumption patterns and attempts to reconsider current notions of consumer vulnerability in EU law from this perspective. The analysis begins with the current understanding of digital vulnerability as the concept most relevant to the post-consumer digital economy. The chapter argues for changing this concept by recognizing that consumers are also digitally vulnerable when they seek goods in the ‘post-consumer’ market. Analyzing examples from the social media sector, the chapter outlines the nature and origin of such “post-consumer digital vulnerability”, juxtaposing the concept with previous cases in which EU consumer law relied on non-economic concepts of consumer interest and harm.
Grochowski, Mateusz, Digital Vulnerability in a Post-Consumer Society. Subverting Paradigms? (October 30, 2024) in The New Shapes of Digital Vulnerability in European Private Law, pp 201-225, Camilla Crea, Alberto De Franceschi, eds, Nomos, October 2024 [10.5771/9783748940913-201]; Max Planck Private Law Research Paper No 24/17.
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