By 1799, the most vicious robber baron of them all met its final end. Two centuries old, the Dutch East India Company went bankrupt.

However, in just two centuries, Europeans had changed the spice trade forever. The spices that were once limited to tiny islands in hidden archipelagoes were being grown around the world and in large quantities. Trade route that spanned oceans became commonplace and competitive. The Dutch tried their best to change the trend, destroying their stocks. But spices were no longer that hard to come by. Monopolies gave way to markets.

The spice markets were fascinating and lucrative. The allure of spice trade, its role in the economy, its uncertainties and of course opportunities kept the spice bazaars flourishing. Though no one could control the overall flow of spices anymore, the sensitive information could be used by traders to make a killing.

Today, the information itself has started to flow freely. The farmer in Vietnam knows the market price as soon as the trader in Rotterdam. The knowledge is no longer a monopoly of the select few. The bargaining power of traders is affected significantly due to the easy availability of the market information for the producers and by emergence of powerful purchasers - the food giants and spice multinationals who can bypass the markets and go directly to the source.

Once the food-processing firms purchased spices through brokers. They are now establishing their own procurement nodes in the key spice producing places. Earlier the reason for going to the source was price. Now it is quality and safeguarding against the presence of impurities in their consignments.

Whether the vertical integration succeeds or not, whether a few traders manage to monopolize the market or not, the modern day economics of the trade will ensure that the taste of luxury beyond the reach almost every human in history is available to almost everyone, almost everywhere.