There is a good story in here about how economics as a profession is intellectually bankrupt. But at the same time, there is also a story about how the only hard data the economics profession can actually offer is actual transactions completed by disinterested, non-colluding, and independent individuals. Supply and demand curves only make sense when there is a genuine conflict between the supply and demand sides. LIBOR-like arrangements, where it's suppliers selling to each other, do not form a valid market because the demand side is also the supply side.

The magic Latin words to ward away CAC farmers[0] are "straight tender-to-tender transaction", aka "you're just moving money around, it's not a real transaction". I am wondering if we need a similar kind of mind-numbing rhetoric to refer to exchanges that are not valid markets: i.e. do not have opposing supply and demand. These exchanges nominally serve some kind of purpose - they balance supply across suppliers - but they should not be allowed to participate in price discovery as they are not a market.

[0] "Customer acquisition costs" refer to any money paid by a business to attract new customers only. A lot of business risk management is put into making sure your customer acquisition costs are not functionally a straight-up discount or giveaway.