If you’re a digital presence, you’ve probably noticed something: the value of trust is gradually diminishing, and almost everything is subject to some form of approval mechanism.
The approval badge next to a profile name, the rating of an app you’re considering, or simply checking how many people have previously viewed a video you’re watching, may initially inspire confidence, but what it offers is merely a virtual indicator of trust.
These symbols serve a single purpose: Creating a sense in people’s minds that “this must be true.” However, no one guarantees or can guarantee true reliability after the product or content is released.
Trust inflation stems from this. Just as the amount of money circulating in the market increases when currency loses value, in the digital world, when true trust decreases, more symbolic indicators begin to appear. These could be verification badges, star rating systems, the number of followers, the number of views, the number of comments left…
The possibility that all of these can be manipulated makes it difficult to understand who and which product/service is truly trustworthy. Therefore, due to this confusion in your mind, you need to put in more effort, spend more time, and make more careful decisions to distinguish accurate information.
I’d like to mention a familiar scenario: having a large number of followers on social media is no longer a sign of trustworthiness. On some platforms, consumer perception can be manipulated through fake sales and reviews, boosting product ratings, and those labeled as bad or negative can be downgraded and rendered invisible.
Artificial intelligence applications have also entered the picture. On the one hand, fake products can be used to manipulate fakes. Manipulative ratings, content, and fake comments are being identified and eliminated with the help of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, AI-generated content, deepfake videos, and comments mimic reality quite realistically. Artificial intelligence produces results so realistic that distinguishing between real and fake is now more difficult for the human eye than it was a year ago.
At this point, the trust tax you pay increases. Trusting a person, platform, brand, or system requires more research, questioning, and verification through various channels than ever before.
In other words, trust is actually becoming cheaper, and the cost of trusting someone is increasing.
For further read…
- If trust is so important, why aren’t we measuring it?
- Where do remote workers pay taxes?
- Author Talks: Sandra J. Sucher on the power of trust
- The trust tax: Decreasing the hidden cost across the entire employee lifecycle
- Perceptions of trust and power are associated with tax compliance
Main photo: Malena Gonzalez Serena, Unsplash
