• Home
  • About
    • Open?
    • Co-operative?
  • Blog
  • Events
    • OPEN 2020
    • OPEN 2019
    • OPEN 2018
    • OPEN 2017
    • Events Calendar
  • Collaborate
  • Contact

The Open Co-op

Where open meets co-op

  • CATEGORIES:
  • Open
  • Co-operative
  • Commons
  • Inspiring Projects
  • Legal Structures
  • Software
  • Audio
  • Video

Outlandish – Platform Co-ops event

May 22, 2016 By Oliver Sylvester-Bradley 1 Comment

Saturday night is not the time most people chose to meet to discuss disrupting democracy.  But that’s what happened at the Platform Co-ops event in London on the 21st of May 2016.

Whilst most of Brick Lane was quaffing vast quantities of craft beer and sipping organic low-fat soya lattes with tofu sprinkles whist discussing how awesome it was that #rainbowunicornkittens was trending on twitter, over the road at New Speak House, a collection of hackers, designers, systems thinkers and aspiring cooperators gathered to discuss the bourgeoning movement know as Platform Co-ops.

New speak House is an amazing place founded to “foster the creation of technology to disrupt the UK political / media / government complex” and it is doing exactly that. It’s an events venue, community space, residential incubator and general hangout set up for people who want to change society with technology, and meet other people with similar interests, the perfect place for progressive peers to plot.

The Platform Co-ops event was organised and sponsored by the excellent Outlandish which meant everyone was suitably furnished with bagels and beer absolutely free, a fitting start to a co-operative gathering, which was kicked of by Nathan Schneider, organiser of the Platform Co-ops event in New York last November.

Nathan is a journalist who, along with Trebor Scholz, has helped elevate the subject of Platform Co-ops into the zeitgeist. Whether the newfound interest in Platform Co-ops simply reflects the growing unease with the rise of the deathstar platforms like Uber, or is the makings of a movement to disrupt democracy remains to be seen but the buzz from the brains at New Speak house certainly implied the later.

Nathan Schneider
Nathan Schneider

Nathan gave a great introduction, framing the debate superbly; it’s all about ownership and governance. The so called “sharing economy” platforms which “share” their apps with consumers and producers whilst rinsing value from them to make venture capitalists rich, is not really sharing at all. True sharing organisations share the organisation too, by making members owners with real democratic voting rights, enabling them to have a say in the decision by which they are affected.

Felix Weth
Felix Weth

Next up was Felix Weth, founder Fairmondo, a German, co-operative, alternative to Amazon, which is owned and managed by its members. Felix spoke extremely candidly about the difficulties of putting Platform Co-operativism into practice. Building a working alternative to the worlds biggest online retailer is never going to be easy and it was refreshing to hear about Fairmondo’s open philosophy. Felix showed how any profits they generate are split four ways with 25% going to: Owners of shares in the co-op, People who have earned Fair Founding Points, to other Non Profits, and the final 25% to upscaling Fairmondo. I’ve never seen a founder of a company openly present a slide showing the status of their bank account before! We’ll be keeping a keen eye out for the UK version of Fairmondo, coming soon.

Fairmondo's 4/4 model of profit distribution
Fairmondo’s 4/4 model of profit distribution

Last up was Sarah Gold, creator of the concept “Alternet”, an open source, peer produced, run, owned and maintained version of the internet. Sarah’s work on Personal Data Licences which was exhibited at the Big Bang Data exhibition at Sommerset House kicked off some interesting discussions. In a post Snowden world the idea of owning your own data, as well as the platforms and other organisations upon which you depend is an inciting proposition.

Sarah Gold's Data Licences concept
Sarah Gold’s Data Licences concept

If the growing number of other examples of member owned platforms and co-ops we heard about are anything to go by, Platform Co-operativism is a concept that is only just getting started. Whether it can actually manage to disrupt democracy remains to be seen but the only way that is going to happen is if we (the people) make it happen.

Sign up at 2016.open.coop to be kept up to date about the two day conference on Platform Co-ops that is being planned for London later this year.

—
@defactodesign

Filed Under: Co-operative, Open Tagged With: Platform Co-ops

Trackbacks

  1. Not a Co-op? Not a Platform Co-op! - The Open Co-op says:
    June 23, 2016 at 2:52 pm

    […] the great Platform Co-op event organised by Outlandish I had the opportunity to hang out with Fairmondo founder Felix Weth and got the opportunity to […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search

Books

Ours to Hack and Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism
UK orders only: Discount price: £10 + £3 P&P

Processing ...


Sharing Cities – Activating the Urban Commons
UK orders only: Discount price: £15 + £3 P&P

Processing ...

Sign up for occasional News

Recent Posts

  • Resonate is creating a Co-operative Privacy and Trust system for digital dignity across communities October 23, 2020
  • Decent Gov Now October 15, 2020
  • OPEN 2020 – Videos July 17, 2020
  • Bristol Pay – a possible future for local currencies July 10, 2020
  • VIDEO: OPEN 2020 – Governance in collaborative projects July 9, 2020
  • Video: OPEN 2020 – Mutual credit deep dive July 3, 2020
  • VIDEO: OPEN 2020 – Cooperation will win June 29, 2020
  • VIDEO: OPEN 2020 – Mr Gee June 29, 2020
  • VIDEO: OPEN 2020 – Universal Basic Everything June 29, 2020
  • VIDEO: OPEN 2020 – Coordination in decentralised networks June 22, 2020
  • VIDEO: OPEN 2020 – Tools of collaboration June 20, 2020
  • VIDEO: OPEN 2020 – Introducing mutual credit June 20, 2020
  • VIDEO: OPEN 2020 – The language of the commons June 19, 2020
  • VIDEO: OPEN 2020 Introduction June 18, 2020
  • Building the commons economy – Q&A with Enric Duran from Faircoin June 1, 2020

Tags

Currency Data DecentGov Democracy Dmytri Kleiner Dynamic Equity Enspiral Grunt Fund John Restakis Loomio Michel Bauwens Mike Moyer Multistakeholder Mutual Credit OPEN 2017 Open Co-ops Open Value Networks P2P Foundation Platform Co-ops Resonate Slicing Pie Stir

Contact The Open Co-op

Privacy policy

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

The Open Co-op