Business process used by automated marketplaces, while certainly streamline objectives, do not allow for collaboration due to the non-finite nature of the actors and activities involved. Even a simple activity from the perspective of a deterministic actor is likely extremely complex and touches unknown actors.

This type of automation often leads to market failure, the greatest of which is speculation. By abstracting the information the extent needed for automation in today’s systems the madness of crowds takes over and people tend to chase castle’s in the sky, as Burton Malkiel would put it.

“…a set of linked activities that take an input and transform it to create an output. Ideally, the transformation that occurs in the process should add value to the input and create an output that is more useful and effective to the recipient either upstream or downstream.” – Henry J Johansson et al, Business Process Reengineering