CityReads│Rise of the Platform Society

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Rise of the Platform Society 

Why public values matter even more in a techno-commercial world?

Josévan Dijck, Thomas Poell, and Martijn de Waal, The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connective World, Oxford University Press, 2018.

Sources:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Platform-Society-Public-Values-Connective/dp/0190889772

https://yourstory.com/2019/09/platform-society-values

Individuals all over the world can use Airbnb to rent an apartment in a foreign city, check Coursera to find a course on statistics, join Patients Like Me to exchange information about one's disease, hail a cab using Uber, or read the news through Facebook's Instant Articles. The promise of connective platforms is that they offer personalized services and contribute to innovation and economic growth, while bypassing cumbersome institutional or industrial overhead.

The “sharing economy,” the “platform revolution,” the “gig economy,” “disruptive innovation”—these are just a handful of epithets used to denote the latest transformation of the Internet. The rise of digital platforms is hailed as the driver of economic progress and technological innovation. Individuals can greatly benefit from this transformation because it empowers them to set up businesses, trade goods, and exchange information online while circumventing corporate or state intermediaries.

But is this the only story about online platforms? What are their far-reaching implications for our society?

In The Platform Society, Van Dijck, Poell and De Waal offer a comprehensive analysis of a connective world where platforms have penetrated the heart of societies-disrupting markets and labor relations, circumventing institutions, transforming social and civic practices and affecting democratic processes. This book questions what role online platforms play in the organization of Western societies. First, how do platform mechanisms work and to what effect are they deployed? Second, how can platforms incorporate public values and benefit the public good?

The subtitle of the book indicates the broader perspective we assume: what role do online platforms play in the organization of public values  in North  American and western European societies? Platforms are neither neutral nor value-free constructs; they come with specific norms and values inscribed in their architectures. These norms may or may not clash with values engraved in the societal structures in which platforms vie to become (or are already) implemented. The connective qualities of online platforms, however, do not automatically translate into public values.

Since the early 2000s, an assemblage of networked platforms has evolved that puts lots of power in the hands of a few corporations that nestled themselves at the gateways of online sociality where they control crucial nodes of information services. The epicenter of the information ecosystem that dominates North American and European online space is owned and operated by five high-tech companies, Alphabet-Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, whose headquarters are all physically located on the West Coast of the United States.

This book focusses on large platform players like “The Big Five” (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft), as well as sector-specific platforms like Uber, 23andMe, PatientsLikeMe, and Coursera. The discussion is largely from the perspective of how Europe is responding to the US-based platform players.

What is an online platform?

An online “platform” is a programmable digital architecture designed to organize interactions between users—not just end users but also corporate entities and public bodies. It is geared toward the systematic collection, algorithmic processing, circulation, and monetization of user data. Single platforms cannot be seen apart from each other but evolve in the con-text of an online setting that is structured by its own logic.

A platform is fueled by data, automated and organized through algorithms and interfaces, formalized through ownership relations driven by business models, and governed through user agreements.

There are two types of platforms: infrastructural and sectoral platforms. Most influential are the infrastructural platforms, many of them owned and operated by the Big Five; they form the heart of the eco- system upon which many other platforms and apps can be built. A second type are sectoral platforms, which serve a particular sector or niche, such as news, transportation, food, education, health, finance, or hospitality.

What is a platform ecosystem?

A“platform ecosystem” is an assemblage of networked platforms, governed by aparticular set of mechanisms that shapes everyday practices.

The Western ecosystem is mostly operated by a handful of big tech companies(Alphabet-Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft) whose infrastructural services are central to the ecosystem’s overall design and the distribution of data flows. Besides, we will explain how several types of sectoral platforms are developed that often seamlessly integrate with the infrastructural core, not just in market sectors such as transport and hospitality but also in public sectors such as education and health.

Although large platforms, particularly those wielded by the “Big Five” tech companies, may dominate the ecosystem, they are not the only contestants. Governments, incumbent (small and large) businesses, individual entrepreneurs, nongovernmental organizations, cooperatives, consumers, and citizens all participate in shaping the platform society’s economic and social practices.

Big Five online platforms

The Big Five’s infrastructural platforms function more or less as utilities or “super platforms” because they provide crucial basic information services upon which other sectoral platforms can be stacked or built.

In principle, the platform ecosystem allows all kinds of newcomers to enter; inpractice, the unbridled growth of the Big Five’s infrastructural platforms has left very little room for competitors to penetrate the core of the US-based ecosystem. Virtually all platforms outside of the Big Five constellation are dependent on the ecosystem’s infrastructural information services.

The infiltration of Big Five infrastructural platforms in specific sectors

For example, Facebook and Google together control over 60 percent of online advertising, their log in identification services are used in many other services as well. Even new disruptors like Spotify and Netflix are dependent on their infrastructure (Google Cloud and AWS, respectively). Google has a 20 percent stake in Uber, while also having acquired Waze.

The platform eco-system is moored in paradoxes: it looks egalitarian yet is hierarchical; it is almost entirely corporate, but it appears to serve public value; it seems neutral and agnostic, but its architecture carries a particular set of ideological values; its effects appear local, while its scope and impactare global; it appears to replace “top-down” “big government” with “bottom-up”“customer empowerment,” yet it is doing so by means of a highly centralized structure which remains opaque to its users.

What is the platform society?

The platform society refers to a society in which social and economic traffic is increasingly channeled by an (overwhelmingly corporate) global online platform ecosystem that is driven by algorithms and fueled by data.

Platforms have penetrated the heart of societies— affecting institutions, economic transactions, and social and cultural practices— hence forcing governments and states to adjust their legal and democratic structures.

Platformization then refers  to  the way  in  which entire  societal  sectors are transforming as a result of the mutual shaping of online connectors and complementors.

Platforms do not cause a revolution; instead, they are gradually infiltrating in, and converging with, the (offline, legacy) institutions and practices through which democratic societies are organized. That is why we prefer the term “platform society”—a term that emphasizes the inextricable relation between online platforms and societal structures. Platforms do not reflect the social: they produce the social structures we live in.

The “platform society” does not merely shift the focus from the economic to the social; the term also refers to a profound dispute about private gain versus public benefit in a society where most interactions are carried out via the Internet. While platforms allegedly enhance personalized benefits and economic gain, they simultaneously put pressure on collective means and public services.

Airbnb offers the potential for some individuals to make some money on a spare room and for others to stay in relatively cheap accommodation. But who will pay for the collective costs? Who will enforce fire safety rules? And who will clean the streets after tourists have left? Students are tempted to consume “free” courses on Coursera, but who pays for the teaching effort that goes into producing them?

We are often made to think that platforms offer a new societal arrangement, which stands apart from existing social and legal structures. The term “platform society” emphasizes that platforms are an integral part of society, where conflicts of interest are currently played out at various levels. We want to highlight how the implementation of platforms in society triggers a fierce discussion about private benefit and corporate gain versus public interests and collective benefits.

The questions whose interests a platform’s activity serves, which values are at stake, and who benefits are central in disputes concerning the creation of public value in the platform society.

The responsibility for a balanced platform society—an open society that anchors its public values in a transparent and accountable manner—rests with all actors involved in its construction: corporations, governments, and civil society actors.

Organization of this book

The first chapter will lay out why the “platform society” is a contested concept, using Airbnb as an example.

The second chapter concentrates on the mechanisms platforms inject into social and economic interaction. We have identified three main mechanisms as driving forces underlying the ecosystem: datafication, commodification, and selection. Far from being mere technical or economic processes, we emphasize the mutual shaping of technology, economic models, and users: while platform mechanisms filter and steer social interactions, users also define their outcome.

Chapters3 through 6 turn the spotlight on four different sectors of society, ranging from predominantly market-ruled sectors to largely public sectors, asking: how are platforms  and  their mechanisms  implemented  in various  private and public sectors in societies on both sides of the Atlantic?

Chapter3 covers the sector of news and journalism. In chapter 4, the focus will shift to the market sector of urban transport, which has been shaken up in many cities around the world by ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. Chapter 5 investigates the health sector. Most pressing in the bourgeoning field of health and fitness apps are questions of safety, privacy, and accuracy, which may be squarely at odds with public values such as accessibility to data for research purposes. Chapter 6 concentrates on education by zooming in on data-based online platforms in primary schooling and higher education in the United States and Europe.

In chapter 7, we will shift our focus from the analytical to the normative and return to the main issue of this book: who is or should be responsible and accountable for anchoring public values in the platform society?

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