What are ‘Platform Co-ops’? Platform cooperatives are online organisations which are owned and managed by their members. Platform co-ops follow the principles of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA). They are democratically governed and support the development of informational and material commons. They provide a viable alternative to the standard internet model based on monopoly and …
Platform co-ops, and the burgeoning movement behind them, are big news. For the first time since the inception of the internet a consensus is forming around a new model of economics and governance. At The Open Co-op we have been working on this concept since 2004 and continue to advocate that the internet provides the …
Introducing Open 2017 – what are platform co-ops? Read More »
Platform Co-op Support The Open Co-op welcomes the support for Platform Cooperatives outlined in Jeremy Corbyn’s Digital Democracy Manifesto (pdf). Recent Deliveroo and UberEats strikes highlight the importance of “the inalienable right of trade union membership” and the growing need for a “cooperative upgrade of the sharing economy”. Support for Open Source We’re also very encouraged by …
Corbyn’s Digital Democracy Manifesto supports Platform Co-ops Read More »
Last month Shareable wrote a great article entitled “11 Platform Cooperatives Creating a Real Sharing Economy“. It’s a really nice list of projects who are all moving in the right direction (i.e. toward greater sharing of ownership and control), but some of them aren’t actually co-operatives. This got me thinking: Should organisations that are not co-operatives be described as …
A video from OuiShare Fest 2016 Speakers: Marc-David Choukran (La Ruche Qui Dit Oui) Yassir Fichtali (Up Group) Nathan Schneider (Platform Cooperativism) Moderator: Marguerite Grandjean (OuiShare) https://ouisharefest.com
This article was originally published on Imperica High-tech tools of exploitation are being repurposed to build a fairer economy. The digital platforms that have become the connective tissue of our lives – the likes of Airbnb and Google – have proven to tend towards monopolies, monetisation of surveillance and disregard for labour standards. But what …
Co-operatives aren’t co-operatives unless they co-operate with each other Read More »
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 …
The “sharing economy” wasn’t supposed to be this way. Aided by the tiny computers most of us carry with us all day, every day, we would be free from the burdens of ownership and making money in our spare time by renting out our unused possessions. The vison was—or at least appeared to be—an idealistic …
Platform Cooperativism: Challenging the Corporate Sharing Economy Read More »
Image: The Battle of Yavin where the first Death Star was destroyed. Credit: Fanpop We have an epic choice before us between platform coops and Death Star platforms, and the time to decide is now. It might be the most important economic decision we ever make, but most of us don’t even know we have a choice. And …
How Platform Coops Can Beat Death Stars Like Uber to Create a Real Sharing Economy Read More »
