An Airbnb office in Toronto. Airbnb exemplifies "a kind of on-demand labour system." Wikicommons/opengrid scheduler/ grid engine. Some rights reserved.“What if this is not capitalism, but something worse?” McKenzie Wark's question eloquently summarizes the growing criticism of profit-maximizing business models within the so-called collaborative sharing economy. That “something worse,” appears to take the form of a new kind of feudalism, as in the case of Facebook. That “something worse,” appears to take the form of a new kind of feudalism, as in the case of Facebook. If feudalism was based on the ownership of land by an elite, the resource now controlled by a small minority is networked data. Or, as in the case of Uber, AirBnB and TaskRabbit, it takes the form of a kind of on-demand labour system, where individuals-freelancers contribute their infrastructure and labour.
What is platform cooperativism?
The concept of “platform cooperative” has been proposed as an alternative to such “sharing economy” firms. A platform cooperative is an online platform (e.g. website, mobile app) that is organized as a cooperative and owned by its employees, customers, users, or other key stakeholders. For example, see a directory of several platform co-ops around the world.
We fully support the broader movement of platform cooperativism. However, we cannot be content with isolated cooperative alternatives designed to counter old forms of capitalism. A global counter-economy needs to be built. And this could happen through the creation of a global digital commons of knowledge.
