Metamarket
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A group of businesses that offer products that are related from a consumer's perspective but which have no institutional connections.
"While the activities that constitute a metamarket are logically related from the consumer's perspective, the products and services that they map into may be quite unrelated from the producer perspective."
- 2 A market that trades in the medium of exchange of a lower-level market, such as money, derivatives, or credit.
"Meanwhile as the metamarket booms, the few remaining souls who did not get in on the ground floor, have no choice but to pursue eschatology."
- 3 A market that trades in access to audiences or consumers.
"These audiences have a price: they constitute metamarkets. The market -- for toothpaste, mobile phones, and optional extras on cars -- passes through the metamarket of audiences."
- 4 The social and political infrastructure within which a market functions.
"A market cannot operate at its full capacity unless it has a metamarket that reduces its costs, internalizes externalities, stabilizes contractual relations, and guarantees property rights."
- 5 The process of promoting the exchange or adoption of things other than goods or services that are offered for sale.
"In this sense, a campaign to respect the rights of nonsmokers in public places through legislation is a "product" that is as real as a Winston "that tastes good like a cigarette should." This broader, more abstract definition also means the conventional theory of a "product life cycle" is pertinent to metamarket organizations."
Example
More examples"While the activities that constitute a metamarket are logically related from the consumer's perspective, the products and services that they map into may be quite unrelated from the producer perspective."
Etymology
From meta- + market.
Related phrases
More for "metamarket"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.