The Rise of a Cooperatively Owned Internet

Summary

Platform Cooperativism gets a boost.

Platform cooperatives weren’t something one could even call for until December 2014, when New School professor Trebor Scholz posted an online essay about “platform cooperativism,” putting the term on the map. A year later, he and I organized a packed conference on the subject in New York City. We’re about to publish Ours to Hack and to Own, a collective manifesto with contributions from more than 60 authors that Scholz and I edited. The authors include leading tech critics like Yochai Benkler, Douglas Rushkoff, and Astra Taylor, as well as entrepreneurs, labor organizers, workers, and others. The theory and practice of platform Cooperativism are spreading.