A Conversation With Trebor Scholz on the Rise of Platform Cooperativism

Summary

On November 13, Civic Hall will host an unconference on platform cooperativism in tandem with a working conference at the New School on the same topic organized by Trebor Scholz. In preparation for both events, we sat down with Trebor to look back at what led him to launch this burgeoning movement and look ahead to its future.

MS: Two years ago, the term “platform cooperativism” had yet to be invented (if my search of Google is accurate). Your piece in Medium really set off a wave of interest that is still growing. Before you fill us in on recent developments, can you shed some light on what led you to write that piece?

TS: Thank you so much, Micah, for this invitation to talk with you. Two years ago, I proposed to bring the cooperative business model to bear on the digital economy because the Web had hit rock bottom. And the situation today isn’t any better, frankly: data tracking is pervasive, siren servers hold our data in perpetuity, privacy has become a privilege of the rich, and the online platforms that we depend on most, are owned by a number of people so small that you could fit them into a Google bus.