With Trebor Scholz of The New School, the IDRC produced the following graphics to help illustrate concepts:
Platform Co-ops
We connect cooperatives with the digital economy
We need alternative economic models because the economy powering the Internet is not working
Inequality
In 2015, the 62 richest people in the world controlled $1.76 trillion: the cumulative worth of 3.5 billion people.Women and people of color are disproportionally affected by this trend.
Network effects lead to top-down control of platforms, weakening competition and the potential for consumer alternatives.
While political democracy has spread in many countries, workplace democracy has not.
In the EU alone, the market for personal data will reach $1 trillion by 2020, encouraging commercial surveillance and privacy breaches.
Terms like “sharing” and “community” are used to sell commercial services and lend out assets. Labor companies pass themselves off as tech companies.
Independent contractors lose rights guaranteed under the Fair Labor Standards Act. They are not covered by unemployment insurance.
1 in 3 Americans is a freelancer. 40% of the US workforce is expected to be freelancers by 2020.
Over the past 40 years, wages for most American workers have not risen, when adjusted for inflation.
Online labor brokerages enable wage theft, discrimination, and exploitation.
• 1 in 3 Americans is a co-op member.
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• Cooperative enterprises worldwide employ 250 million people and generate $2.2 trillion in revenue.
1. Voluntary and Open Membership
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6. Cooperation among Cooperatives
7. Concern for Community
Platform co-ops respond to the market failures of the online economy
benefits of the platform co-op model:
Lower transaction and retention costs
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Prospect of data democracy
1.
WHO: Stocksy United stocksy.com
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WHAT: Health data cooperative; Members upload their medical records, mobile-health data, and personal genome and can then decide to securely share with: physicians, family, researchers; Apps-economy allows patientsto make use of their data; Profits are generated from voluntary sale of data to researchers; Aims for an international federation of cooperatives with the goal of creating a cooperative data commons
... and there is so much more in the platform co-op ecosystem
Journalism
Banyan Project
Newscoop Sourcefabric
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Positive News
La Jornada en linea
Green Taxi Cooperative
Yellow
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Co-op Taxi Line
Tapazz
Modo
Short Term Rental
H2H
Fair BnB
Incubators and Supporting Institutions
bHive
Enspiral
Cooperative Networks
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Freedom Coop
Seed dot coop
Dark Peak
Midata
Data Commons Cooperative
GiSC
Our Data Coop
Consulting
Gildedsplinters
Smart
Food
Join Us 2 Eat
Open Food network
High Plains Food Coop
Fair Shares
Any Share
Economic Space Agency
Home Services
Loconomics
Up & Go
Governance
Loomio
Divvy DAO
Marketplace
France Barter
Fair Market
Fairmondo
Origin Club
Digi Coop
Covivi
HCoop
Drutopia
Web Hosting dot coop
Music
Resonate
4 ways to start a platform co-op (PC)
• CO-OPs launch PCs
• FAILING STARTUPS convert into PCs
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• Co-ops can launch PCs with the help of UNION
• Financing
• Value Proposition
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• Leadership
• Member Involvement
Platform cooperativism is a growing international movement that builds a fairer future of work. Rooted in democratic ownership, co-op members, freelancers, technologists, and unionists create a concrete near-future alternative to the extractive sharing economy.
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