A Labor Movement for the Platform Economy

-Platform cooperatives that institutionalize worker voice

-Labor laws to protect platform worker rights

Despite real differences in their jobs, both gig workers and content creators are reckoning with the fact that their livelihoods depend on the actions and algorithms of platforms that they have little to no ability to sway.

-Building Worker Power: Decentralized collective action helps us move in the right direction — both by influencing current platforms, and by forging the next generation of disruptive networks that are more aligned with their participants.

Platform workers often face substantial lock-in, driven by network effects and lack of data portability. Platforms intermediate transactions, and as a result, they gather market data and often control customer relationships. This type of capital cannot be easily ported over to other platforms or worker-owned properties, which means that platform la... See more

Platforms are increasingly governing participants’ opportunities and livelihoods, and with that comes the need for mutual accountability and evolving protections and responsibilities.

The world of platform labor is in principle a net good: Platform marketplaces can substantially improve social welfare by enabling new or improved transactions. This leads to new forms of labor activity, expanding workers’ options. Those whose niche interests and skills would have made it challenging to make a living from local customers can now tu... See more

In other words, the heterogeneous nature of creators makes it challenging for the most powerful creators to have the motivation or cohesion to organize. In contrast, labor movements typically harness the collective power of large workforces who have similar shared experiences.

As demonstrated throughout history — from the French Revolution to the growth of Wikipedia — the power of the distributed many can sometimes greatly outperform the power of the hierarchical few.

-Cryptonetworks and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) as the future of internet-native co-ops: Such networks address two major issues that have prevented traditional cooperative businesses from becoming pervasive: access to capital and complexity of governance. With the issuance of a token, cryptonetworks can benefit from market specula... See more