How to Reap the Benefits of the “Digital Revolution”? Modularity and the Commons
Summary
A significant potential of the digital revolution has not been fully realized. A contextual shift has to take place to build institutions that would harness the power of a fundamental aspect of digital technologies: modularity. I show why modularity lies at the heart of digital technologies and describe its strengths and drawbacks. Further, I discuss an emerging mode of production premised on modularity, which may point towards a more sustainable and inclusive digital transformation yet to come.
This article argues that independently of whether one aims to build a green growth, degrowth,
social democratic, communist or any future, one should be aware of a fundamental aspect
of the digital technologies: modularity. Modularity is a property that describes the degree
that standardized parts or independent units are used to construct a more complex system
(Oxford Dictionaries 2019). A system can be an artifact, a structure or even a process. So, such
a system is broken into modules of varying degrees of interdependence and independence
based on predetermined abstractions and a set of rules or standards.