Have you ever read The Cluetrain Manifesto? If not, do so, soon. It is an amazing book about the workings of the new marketplace. Or should I say "old market place" since the Manifesto will soon celebrate its ten year anniversary?
One of the co-authors of the book, Doc Searls, is still looking into customer independence and vendor engagement. In fact he has a entire blog on the subject over at Project VRM Blog
There among other interesting entries on the subject of vendor-customer relationship you'll find Searl's stab at a Declaration of Customer Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all customers are born free, that they are endowed by the market with innate abilities to relate, to converse and to transact — on their own terms, and in their own ways. When sellers have labored long and hard to restrict those freedoms, and to ignore and insult the capacities enjoyed naturally by customers — by speaking, for example, of “capturing,” “acquiring,” “retaining,” “locking in” and otherwise “owning” customers as if they were slaves [...] it is the right of customers to obsolete the coercive systems to which both sellers and customers have become accustomed. We will do this by providing ourselves with new tools for leveraging our native powers, for the good of ourselves and sellers alike."
Go read more on Searl's blog.
