Information Arbitrage

Information arbitrage is the demand arising out of the absence of new information. Teaching and tutoring are traditional jobs arising out of Information arbitrage. But they are more institutional roles thereby offering little room for adventurism. The faster and frequent versions exist today owing to the Information Technology boom. Citizen journalism is one example of using information arbitrage at a fast pace-you saw something new, you broadcast it and it reached more people. Any information-company announcements, quarterly results, research breakthroughs, or any subject matter that can be broken down by domain experts into common language. These are more original ways of reducing(or cashing out) the arbitrage. Lets call these first degree arbitrages. Because the internet is such a vast space with different platforms it happens that first degree information does not reach its target audience in one go. Herein comes the role of 2nd degree arbitragers. These are less original but creative, observant or simply lucky. Cross platform sharing(which gave me the idea of this essay) is a typical example. The less presentable geeks post their findings and observation on X, the second degrees pick it up, present it with charm and post it on Instagram. Sometimes blind copy pasting it works too if the information is such. This classification I suspect isn’t a conscious choice of the actors or at least wasn’t so in the beginning.But it is shaping out of the design of internet and now there are people who operate the social media handles doing exactly this. Acting as information brokers with <1 minute video graphics. This is a huge opportunity and already employs so many users.