Do you mean there is some kind of rule or law preventing that? Otherwise, it's not appropriate to generalize the microeconomic behavior of a population of 70,000+ (2017 attendance estimate).
I will say in my experience (and second-hand experience with hundreds if not thousands of participants), that there is literally zero* bartering. And, furthermore, many (cf ~all) people would be aghast at any sort of quid pro quo exchange.
Read the last paragraph from the parent stating they would not return without a large presentation/gift. This captures the spirit/zeitgeist/culture of burning man!
* I have seen some bartering with illicit substances to prove one isn't a law enforcement officer, but the barter amounts to "show me you have some money, even a few cents, and I'll trade you immeasurable money"
"it used to happen more in the early years--certainly in the early 2000s when, frankly, when the dot-com concept was coming to life, one of the things we would see which was a little related to Gifting and a little related to Decommodification is, we would see camps have logos from their start-up in front of their camp."
The point is that Burning Man's community is not built around transactional experience, and that value shines strongly throughout the experience.
That’s funny, but goes to show that everyone’s experience is what they make of it. My camp one year traded a bunch of alcohol for a keg and first dibs on some grilled cheese. For each it’s own.
