Since the turn of the century, the art market has been promised that e-commerce would transform it — and hundreds of millions of dollars later, i has not happened. The fall 2025 sale of David Zwirner's Platform and Christie's closing its digital art department seem like a verdict on the fundamental mismatch between how major art gets bought (discreetly) and how the internet actually works (“Buy It Now”). As Basic Space's Jesse Lee, the new owner of Platform, put it: "To a smart, cool 25-year-old with money to spend, a sales platform with prices missing just seems crazy." The real opportunity, if it exists at all, lies further down the market pyramid — merch, multiples, five-figure emerging artists — where volume can justify the infrastructure.
