Ending Type: Proximity

Moving out of reach of the service or product relationship brings the end.

This kind of ending occurs when the experience ceases because the location has changed. When a person has moved away, they might be outside the distribution of service coverage. In digital, consumers experience a proximity type ending when they move from one digital platform to another. This could be Apple to Android, for example. Apps and data that were once available have now moved out of reach.

Privacy

An important aspect of proximity is the boundary of privacy. Individuals may feel that their privacy has certain limits. But this is threatened when cookies or other technological methods are found to be digging deeper than the person expected or wanted. This changes their perception of where their privacy ends and their public profile begins.

Trade traffic

Unbeknown to many consumers, their consumption is dictated to a large degree by trade agreements between countries. This helps to break down proximity boundaries for goods as they travel over borders. This has generated a stark contrast with the UK’s departure from the European Union’s trade area. To the surprise of many UK consumers, they are now being charged custom fees for goods that they order online, but don’t realise they come from Europe.

VPN

A technology that has emerged recently, partially as a result of proximity limitations, is the mass market VPN (Virtual Private Network). Originally, the technology was used by corporations needing increased security for their travelling staff. But more recently, mass- market versions have become popular for people wanting to hide their location, usually to watch TV from other countries. This has invited people to engage in low-level fraud. They pretend they are in one location but seek the benefits of another.