To facilitate that transaction, on-demand startups have taken reputation scoring to a new level: People staying in spare rooms or accepting rides from strangers depend on the platforms and other customers to vet hosts and drivers for them. .
In an age where Allen Stanford's alleged $8 billion Ponzi scheme pales in comparison wtih Bernard Madoff's much bigger one, no one can take reputations at face value.
Duncan Taylor has been building quite a reputation at Saracens of late, but now he's taking his reputation to the international stage.
Some say the company simply began taking this reputation for granted.
If a critic doesn't take their reputation seriously, then neither will we".
But taking the reputation for ruggedness to a new market of private buyers was another challenge altogether.
"Obviously, we had the Olympics and have seen how the world views us," he said, "so we take our reputation a little more serious now".
But it can now be said that Mr Crosby has performed another job people thought was impossible: that of taking the reputation of the honours system to new depths.
Now roll up, roll up at Upton Park on 14 July and watch David Haye and Dereck Chisora take the reputation of boxing to a new low.
The world may take your reputation from you, but it cannot take your character.
