What is Platform Cooperativism and Why is it Important?

Summary

Today, we’re here at the New School in New York City for the Platform Cooperativism conference, which is bringing together a remarkable range of speakers on the theme of creating online platforms that are owned and operated by their users and workers. These two days feature speakers from a wide range of academic disciplines alongside people sharing their experiences of running co-ops and advocating for fair work in platform economies.

Trebor starts out his jeremiad telling us that the missing element in discussions of economic problems is the lack of something we can say yes to — something that people could actually build and support. In this first session of the day, Unpacking Platforms, Trebor Scholz and Janelle Orsi offer a set of principles and platform examples that they hope will frame our conversations over the next two days.