Platform Cooperativism: What Is It?

Summary

Left in the hands of Google or Facebook, the “commons” of all our data stand to enhance corporate wealth while creating a surveillance state. But what if the producers of all that content — us — developed platforms where users shared ownership of this data and played a role in governance? Could all that socially produced value be used for the common good?

Yochai Benkler, author of The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, says we could be on the verge of a great new tipping point of people power — but not if we don’t grasp the opportunity to organize for a power shift.